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Director Lina Wertmüller honored by Hollywood and during the ceremony Isabella Rossellini translated her words: "she would like to change the Oscar to a feminine name," the actress said, translating as the 91 years Italian director accepted her honorary Oscar. "She would like to call it 'Anna.' Women in the room, please scream, 'We want Anna, a female Oscar!'"

Wertmüller became the first woman ever to receive a best director Oscar nomination when she was recognized for 1976's Seven Beauties.

"How do you correct centuries of patriarchal domination?" Jane Campion asked. "It started with Lina Wertmüller." Campion, together with Little Women director Greta Gerwig, spoke on the history of women nominated for best director by the Academy. "It's a very short history, more of a haiku," Campion said, noting that 350 men have been nominated for best director, versus five for women (including herself and Gerwig, who called Wertmüller "a godmother to us all."

Also during the black-tie dinner at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Center — where the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences conferred its honorary Oscars a few weeks earlier than usual this year — Geena Davis, 63, became the 39th recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which celebrates "outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes" for building upon her acting career in films like The Accidental Tourist, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own to become an advocate for gender equality in media.

The evening’s other honorees included director David Lynch, who found wide audiences for surrealist films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and Wes Studi, a Cherokee American actor who has appeared in more than 30 films, including Dances With Wolves, The Last of the Mohicans and Avatar.
Wertmüller, in 1976, became the first female director to receive an Academy Award nomination for helming grotesque Holocaust drama “Seven Beauties,” which received four nominations, including original screenplay for her, foreign-language film and lead actor Giancarlo Giannini. She will be celebrated on Oct. 27 with an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards ceremony, followed the next day by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Genoma Films, which funded the restoration of her Oscar winning “Seven Beauties,” and Sardinia Film Commission are spearheading a retrospective of her films at the American Cinematheque on Oct. 20 and 25.