Ellen Kuras, ASC received top honors for cinematography during the 1999 Women In Film (WIF) Crystal Awards luncheon in Los Angeles. The Kodak Vision Award is presented annually by Women In Film to a cinematographer with notable artistic achievements in features and/or documentaries, who is also judged to be a positive role model.

Kuras qualified on all counts according to WIF President Iris Grossman, who observes, "Ellen Kuras has filmed some of the best documentaries made during this decade. Audiences at Cannes loved Summer of Sam (which Kuras lensed for Spike Lee, a frequent TV commercial collaborator), and she also did great work earlier this year on The Mod Squad.

"Capping her accolades, Grossman adds, "She is an exceptional role model for young women who are contemplating careers as cinematographers."

Kuras studied anthropology at Brown University. She became interested in film as an adjunct to anthropology. Kuras worked as a production assistant, sound editor and camera assistant before working as an electrician and gaffer to learn lighting as a craft.

She launched her career in 1987 with Samsara, a documentary filmed in Cambodia and garnered some 25 prizes, including the 1990 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award for cinematography for that effort. Kuras also earned raves for her black-and-white camerawork on Swoon, Tom Kalin's critically-acclaimed independent feature recounting the chilling Leopold and Loeb murders which shocked the nation during the 1920s.

She won the Best Dramatic Cinematography Award at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival for Swoon, which was also nominated for an Independent Feature Project/West Spirit Award. Kuras earned another Best Dramatic Cinematography Award at Sundance in 1995 for Angela. Later that year, she was nominated for an Emmy for Century of Women. Other notable credits include Unzipped, I Shot Andy Warhol, Postcards From America, Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, Niggericans and If These Walls Could Talk, Part I.

"I feel incredibly lucky to have had opportunities to work with talented directors and other filmmakers who have something important to say about the human condition," Kuras says. "I am also lucky to be working at a time when cinematographers are getting recognition for their artistic achievements. I'm highly motivated to keep learning and trying different things. I love my work. I thrive on the relationships that I've developed with directors by trying to understand what's in another person's mind and helping them tell their stories in a creative way."