Reflecting on certain pieces of media such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, whose iconic scenes and moments are near unsurpassable, Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, an extremely poignant and overstated political satire that truly paved the way for future filmmakers, or even Netflix’s Ozark, with such a grim bleakness and edge that separated itself from the many other similar crime dramas that preceded it, it’s impossible to applaud these films and TV shows for what they are without acknowledging the talented woman behind the cinematography of each of these projects: Ellen Kuras.

Kuras is a cinematographer, director, producer, writer, you name it, whose body of work is just as impressive as it is diverse. In the past, she has worked with essential Hollywood names such as Spike Lee, Jonathan Demme, Michel Gondry, and Martin Scorsese. With several music videos, documentaries, TV show directorial positions, and cult-classic films under her belt, she has surely made a name for herself and has been able to spread her artistic vision in many more ways than one.

This year, on March 20th at the 36th American Society of Cinematographers annual awards, Kuras will be accepting the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award, making her the first woman to receive this award in history.

However, Kuras’s lifetime of filmmaking is far from complete, as she has several future projects on their way, including the self-written and directed biopic on vogue model turned war correspondent simply titled Lee, as well as many more projects with streaming services like Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.