Daily US Times: At a socially distanced Oscar ceremony retooled for the coronavirus pandemic, Chloé Zhao made history. The “Nomadland” filmmaker won best director on the 93rd Academy Awards, becoming just the second woman in the 93 year of the prize to win the award and the first woman of color.
Only Kathryn Bigelow, for the movie “The Hurt Locker,” had previously won the award in 11 years ago. The win was widely expected and proves the extraordinary rise of the China-born Chloé Zhao, a lyrical filmmaker whose “Nomadland” is just her third feature.
Chloé Zhao’s film, the favorite to win best picture, is a wistful open-road drama about itinerant life in the American West.
Zhao said: “I have always found goodness in the people I’ve met everywhere I went in the world. 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.”
The Oscar, the most ambitious award show held during the Covid-19 pandemic, rolled out a red carpet and restored some glamour to the nearly century-old movie institution, but with a radically transformed — and in some ways downsized — telecast.
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony kicked off with opening credits and a slinky Regina King entrance, as the camera followed her and “One Night in Miami” director in one take as she strode with an Oscar in hand into Los Angeles’ Union Station and onto the stage.
Nominees sat at cozy, lamp-lit tables around an intimate amphitheater inside the transit hub.
The 32-year-old Daniel Kaluuya won best supporting actor for “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The win for the British actor who was previously nominated for “Get Out,” was widely expected.
You may read: English football to boycott social media platforms
