At a socially distanced Oscar ceremony retooled for the pandemic, Chloé Zhao made history. The “Nomadland” filmmaker won best director on Sunday, becoming just the second woman in the 93 year of the Academy Awards to win the award and the first woman of color.
Only Kathryn Bigelow, 11 years ago for “The Hurt Locker,” had previously won the award. The win, widely expected, caps the extraordinary rise of the China-born Zhao, a lyrical filmmaker whose “Nomadland” is just her third feature. Her film, the favorite to win best picture, is a wistful open-road drama about itinerant life in the American West.
“I have always found goodness in the people I’ve met everywhere I went in the world,” said Zhao. “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on the goodness in other no matter how difficult it is to do that.”
