Ladies’ Night

It was a red letter day for women in the film industry yesterday as Kathryn Bigelow became the surprise first woman to win Best Director at the Oscars for “The Hurt Locker,” a film about the Iraq War which also took the Best Picture and four other awards. Bigelow’s win was all the more impressive because her film, the story of an Army bomb disposal unit in Baghdad, was made for a modest $11 million, beating the $100 million blockbuster “Avatar”, hotly tipped to win, and incidentally directed by Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron. Bigelow is only the fourth woman to have been nominated for a Best Director academy award in the Oscars’ 82-year history. Meanwhile another female triumph was won by Sandra Bullock, who scooped the Best Actress gong for her performance in “The Blind Side”, just a day after winning the Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her role in “All About Steve” – making her the first person to win both awards in the same weekend!