Ambimama - India

Iraq war film has won six awards at Oscar. Still the public is wondering what the film is about. They are busy or still talking about Avatar. But Kathryn Bigelow had done it. She is the first woman ever to win the Oscar for best director. Opening the envelope, Barbra Streisand said: “It’s about time”.

And Bigelow’s triumph didn’t stop there: her $11m film The Hurt Locker went on to win best picture, making a total of six awards on the night, easily beating her ex-husband James Cameron’s $300m blockbuster Avatar, which managed only three technical awards.
“It’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow, only the fifth woman director to be nominated in the history of the Academy Awards. She praised her fellow nominees “who have inspired me for decades”, and paid tribute to those in the US army serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, where her film about a bomb disposal squad was set.

She and her fellow producers will be hoping their Oscar triumph gives the film a boost at the box office: it has taken only $15m so far, making it the lowest-grossing film ever to win best picture. It became clear early in the evening’s ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles that this was to be The Hurt Locker’s night when it won best screenplay and best editing. It also became clear that this would be an Oscars ceremony just as memorable for who didn’t win as who did.