Kathryn Bigelow blasts gender barrier with DGA

The Directors Guild of America awards held in Los Angeles on Saturday night will be remembered for two things: Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman ever to win the annual best director award and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie attending the ceremony together in public defiance of rumours that they are breaking up.

Bigelow won the award for The Hurt Locker, her powerful drama about a US bomb disposal unit working in Iraq. "I am so deeply stunned and honoured and proud," said Bigelow. "I think we all felt a really deep responsibility to tell this story with as much honesty as possible, given the courage of the men and women in the field."

Following the previous weekend's Producers Guild Award for The Hurt Locker, Bigelow is now the hot favourite to pick up the Oscar for best director in March. The winner of the DGA has gone on to take the best director Oscar all but six times in the last 61 years.

Whether the film can also take the best picture Oscar is a moot point. In 2006, Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash despite picking up the DGA and PGA honours and the best director Oscar for Ang Lee.

Many observers feel Bigelow's ex-husband James Cameron is still likely to take the best picture Oscar for Avatar, now officially the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood.

Cameron was one of four directors Bigelow beat to take the DGA award. The other three were Lee Daniels for Precious, Jason Reitman for his corporate downsizing comedy Up in the Air and Quentin Tarantino for the World War II drama Inglourious Basterds.

At Tarantino's table were Brad Pitt - who starred in Inglourious Basterds - and his partner Angelina Jolie, looking very much like a couple not on the verge of a breakdown. Either the tabloids got it all horribly wrong -  and the boring truth, as The First Post suggested, is that there was never a break-up in the offing - or 'Brangelina' deserve acting awards galore. No doubt the tabloids will keep Hollywood "informed". ·