The Hurt Locker

Famous for being the film that made history with Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director, The Hurt Locker remains one of the most influential war films of all time. Written by Mark Boal, who drew on his own experiences as a war correspondent, this thriller about a bomb disposal squad in the Iraq War stands out for its masterful build-up of suspense. Known for her action-films, Bigelow’s focus here is not so much on the intricacies of the conflict itself, but rather on the uncontrollable physical danger faced by the team.

Duration: 131’
Production year: 2008
Country: US, LU
Language: EN, AR Subtitles: PT

Academy Awards 2010 – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing
Venice Film Festival 2008 – SIGNIS Award, Sergio Trasatti Award, Human Rights Film Network Award, Young Cinema Award, Gucci Prize

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Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow was born in the United States in 1951. She started her career as a plastic artist and majored in Fine Arts with a special focus in painting at the San Francisco Institute of Arts. She got her master’s degree in film at the Columbia University, where she studied theory and criticism and joined the Art & Language collective, created with the goal of allying theoretical concerns with artistic production. She codirected, with Monty Montgomery, her first feature film, The Loveless (1981), in which her desire of manipulating genre conventions is already present. This desire would likewise inform her following features, more commercial in nature, like Blue Steel (1989), Point Break (1991) and Strange Days (1995). In 2008, she directed The Hurt Locker, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, and with which Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. Bigelow describes her style as an exploration of the kinetic potential of cinema and her films are characterized by fast and abrupt action and considerable, but never gratuitous violence, always aligned with her theoretical interests.