The Year of Kathryn Bigelow and her Boys

by aparnamalladi

Yes! I saw her walk up the podium and get her Oscar and yes I cried. I hugged Erin Ploss Campoamor who was sitting next to me and I was in Diana Romero’s house in Echo Park while all this happened.

In 1998 I started on my path of being a filmmaker. I had no idea what that meant or would make me do. All I knew was that I was aligned. My first job was (interestingly enough) on Erin Ploss Campoamor’s film – ‘April in the Morning’. She was directing the film and Pablo Proenza (now her husband) was her cinematographer. The shoot was in Berkeley. I was the Art director on the shoot and my first job was to get a couple of gold fish in a bowl for the shoot. I called the 2 fish ‘Big Eyes’ and ‘Small Eyes’. They died on me soon after the film due to my in experinece and overfeeding. I mourned their loss and decided to never get fish as pets ever again. too heart breaking. The good thing that came of that shoot was my friendship with Erin and Pablo and the genesis of my first film – ‘Nupur – Ankle Bracelets’. Erin was my first supporter and started as a producer on my first film. So it was great that when I saw Kathryn win the Oscar, Erin was there sitting next to me. We jumped up and down like school girls. Yes, it was possible and would remain a possibility for all eternity. A woman director can win in that very male category. She can be the creator and what’s more she can do it with a film about men. How awesome is that!

I met Diana Romero at Erin’s party. She was part of the NALIP gang and graduated from AFI producing program. We kept a nice friendship over the years and things were pleasant. Then one day she and I had tea at Glendale Manor and she told me about her goals and aspirations. She wanted to make big budget studio films. She wanted to ride the tiger. Yes! I understood. i saw how big she was during that conversation. She looked beautiful and powerful. I suggested that she should just go for it. I was trying to be encouraging. I meet her a year later and she is working for Lions Gate and had optioned a book and is gearing up for a film. It was at her 2010 Oscar party I saw Kathryn Bigelow receive her 2nd Oscar for producing. We screamed like banshees and hugged like crazy. It was a very emotional moment.

Yes, I make a big deal of it. Yes, It is feminist. Yes, it’s crazy. And I will tell you the reason why.

When I received the 2001 Film Arts Foundation grant for New Directors to make my first film, we were given a year to submit our finished film to fulfill the conditions of the grant. Gail Silva, the then director of Film Arts Foundation told me something that caught my ears – The women grant receivers always completed their films on time and submitted them. The men filmmakers, it was touch and go. some did and some didn’t. She wondered why that was. The answer to me (even then) was a no brainer. Women got very few opportunities and when they did one, they squeezed every ounce of themselves to make sure they took full advantage of the opportunity, because if you did not come through on your one opportunity, chances were that you would not get another. Men, in contrast did not have that fear or pressure. They could count on more opportunity. That was the difference. It’s not that women do not get equal opportunities. It’s just that we do not get equal opportunity to fuck up. You had to make good (or great) every time.

All I have ever been is a woman. And so really I cannot ever fairly compare and contrast. To know what it must be to be a male director and how hard or easy it is to navigate through to make a career. I truly cannot say. However, I do know that it in the 80 odd years since the Academy has been handing out awards, only 4 times a woman has been nominated for best director and won once. They say film is a director’s medium. They say a film is a director’s vision. They say the opportunity is equal. I want to believe it.

I believed it tonight. It finally happened. Tonight I was proud to be a film director. Everything seemed just a little more possible.

xoxo,
Aparna

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