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Los Angeles: Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win a best director Oscar on Sunday for her hard-nosed work on The Hurt Locker, the Iraq war film about a team of US soldiers who defuse bombs. In a true Hollywood twist, Bigelow edged out her ex-husband, Avatar filmmaker James Cameron, and both were widely considered the front-runners for the honour.

Singer and filmmaker Barbra Streisand, who once saw her 1991 movie The Prince of Tides nominated for a best picture Academy Award, announced that Bigelow had won with the words, “Well, the time has come.”
After accepting the Oscar, Bigelow called it “the moment of a lifetime.” Bigelow was only the fourth woman ever nominated for a best director Oscar in the Academy Awards’ 82-year history. The previous woman nominees were Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion and Lina Wertmuller. Directing has long been the domain of men in Hollywood, with women enjoying fewer opportunities. Women directed only seven per cent of the 250 top-grossing films in the US and Canada in 2009, a figure hardly changed in more than two decades, according to the Centre for the Study of Women in Television & Film at San Diego State University.
Bigelow won her nomination after earning a reputation for taking risks with bold film projects. With The Hurt Locker, her gamble involved making a movie about the Iraq war when other projects about the conflict fared badly with audiences and critics. In making low-budget The Hurt Locker, Bigelow shot in Jordan to gain a realistic setting that looked like Iraq. She often filmed near the Iraqi border. The independent film focuses on a team of three US soldiers who defuse roadside bombs. While the job comes with plenty of risks, team leader William James makes it even more dangerous by de-activating bombs by hand and chasing after insurgents. US defence secretary Robert Gates has praised the film. Hollywood watchers say The Hurt Locker has won over movie industry players who run the Oscars because it focuses on the heroics of US soldiers, and avoids politics.
The film’s success with audiences has been more limited, and it has made about $21 million in global ticket sales. Aside from Bigelow and Cameron, the other directors nominated for an Oscar were Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds, Lee Daniels for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push” by Sapphire and Jason Reitman for Up in the Air.     —Reuters