For the first time in the 93-year-old history of the Academy Awards, an Asian American woman was not only nominated but won the Best Director title and the Best Picture title for “Nomadland”. Similarly, Chloé Zhao’s film “Nomadland”, which has received critical acclaim, won the Golden Globes, allowing her to win the Best Director and Best Motion Picture titles once again.
Zhao’s win for Best Director at the Golden Globes marks the second woman and the first woman of color to win in that category. The importance of Asian American directors is evident in Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian women. In the past, we have seen many incidents where Asian women are often “fetishized” in the views of American men.
Growing the number of Asian women behind the scenes in movie production also allows for the correct portrayal of them on screen.
As more and more Asian women continue to get into directing, Chloé Zhao has already built a wonderful reputation. Zhao became the most awarded filmmaker ever in a single awards season and took home many awards including BAFTAs, Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Chloé Zhao was born in Beijing, China to a well-off family. When describing her childhood she recalled that she was often very “rebellious and lazy” and often drew manga or fanfiction to pass time. Her love for film as a child heavily influenced her drawing to Westen culture and media. While still learning English, her father sent her abroad to study at Brighton College, a private boarding school in the United Kingdom. She eventually moved to Los Angeles and then to Massachusetts to attend Mount Holyoke College where she majored in politics and minored in film studies. Zhao went on to the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Graduate Film Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
In 2015, she went on to direct, write, produce, and edit a feature by the name of “Songs My Brothers Taught Me”. The film was shot in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and told the story about a Lakota Sioux brother and sister relationship. It was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival, played at Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best First Feature at the 31st Independent Spirit Awards. When filming this feature, her knowledge was very limited. She came from China, yet wanted to know the stories within an indigenous community in the United States. She immersed herself into the culture and tried to get the stories behind the surface. She didn’t want the story that they offered tourists.
Zhao cast locals in her movie because she wanted to show them that the stories she was portraying were their real ones.
She also went on direct “The Rider” which premiered at Cannes Film Festival and won the Art Cinema Award. She was nominated for Best Feature and Best Director at the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards. The film was released by Sony Pictures and received critical acclaim. By 2018, Zhao was directing her third feature film, Nomadland. Nomadland was a film adaptation of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, a book written by Jessica Bruder about older Americans who changed their lives to adapt to the working standards set by the 2007-2009 Great Recession. The film was filmed over four months in the American West with actual nomadic workers.
Chloé Zhao’s next film is going to be an impressive one as well. Zhao will become the first Asian woman to ever direct a film for Marvel. The film, “Eternals” is set to come out in November 2021 and will feature many actors of Asian descent as well. “Eternals” is also set to feature Marvel’s first gay superhero as well as the first deaf one. The growth of Chloé Zhao’s projects is only some of the evidence of her hard work. From works regarding Native American stories to superheroes, Zhao shows the diversity of her abilities. Chloé Zhao has deservingly claimed her place among many of the best Hollywood directors.
“Compassion is the breakdown of all the barriers between us — a heart-to-heart bonding. Your pain is my pain; it’s mingled and shared between us.” - Chloé Zhao
Writer: Christina Cheriyampurathu
Editor: Leah Tovar
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