This is her story! Jane Campion received the award for Best Director at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 27, for her work on the film “The Power of the Dog”.
“I just want to say a big thank you to my fellow nominees, I love you all, you are all so extraordinarily talented, and it could have been any of you,” said 67-year-old Campion. “I love directing because it’s a deep dive into history. The task of embodying history can be overwhelming. The best part is that I’m not alone. On “The Power of the Dog” I worked with actors whom I used to call friends. They met the challenge of this story with all the depth of their gift: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Cody Smith-McPhee, Jesse Plemons and my whole team, sincere hearts.”
The New Zealand native was ahead of his fellow directors Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”). Her win marks the third time a woman has received the director’s trophy after Katherine Bigelow in 2010 and Chloe Zhao in 2021.
Campion, who also won the Critic’s Choice Awards 2022 award for Best Director on March 13, was previously nominated for the Director’s Academy Award in 1994 for her work on “Piano.” (The 75-year-old Spielberg won the prize for “Schindler’s List” the same year.)
The Bright Star filmmaker prefaced her Oscar win with a successful performance at the Directors Guild Awards earlier this month, where she accepted a feature-length theatrical film.
“The Power of the Dog” received 11 more Oscar nominations, including for Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film, released in November 2021, tells the story of rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), who lives with his brother (Jesse Plemons) in rural Montana in 1925. When the 33-year-old “Friday Night Lights” character returns home with a new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and stepson (Cody Smith-McPhee), Phil has to teach the newcomers how to run the family farm.
