Polish-born cinematographer gets Oscar nomination

Janusz Kaminski: photo - PAP/EPA PAUL BUCK

The film leads the list with as many as 12 nominations, including those for best film, best director, best actor (Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln), best supporting actors, as well as best adapted screenplay and costumes.

Kamiński has photographed all of Spielberg's movies since 1993's Schindler's List, with the exception of Jurassic Park.

He has two Oscars to his credit already, for black-and-white cinematography for Schindler's List and for Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Last year, he received an Academy Award nomination for War Horse.

Kamiński has also three Academy Award nominations to his credit: for Spielberg’s Amistad and War Horse, and for Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Fifty four year-old Kamiński asked for political asylum in Austria after the imposition of martial law in Poland at the end of 1981 and soon went to the United States.

He first worked in Chicago’s factories and attended the city’s Columbia College, before transferring to the prestigious American Film Institute AFI Conservatory and made his debut as a cinematographer in 1989. In 2000 he completed his directorial debut - a supernatural thriller, Lost Souls.

This year’s Oscars – given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – will be announced at the ceremony in Hollywood on 24 February. (mk/pg)