Oscars: the triumph of Nomadland passed under silence in China

 Sylvie Claire / April 26, 2021

The triumph of Chloe Zhao, who won the Oscar for best director for her film Nomadland, was largely ignored on Monday by the media and censored on social networks in China, her country of origin.

Born in Beijing in 1982, the filmmaker became the first Asian to win the supreme statuette for this feature film depicting the daily life of modest inhabitants of the great American spaces.

The road movie also won the Oscar for Best Picture and its lead actress Frances McDormand won the Best Actress award. A success largely minimized in China.

No major media reported the news. And the social network Weibo (equivalent of Twitter) had censored on Monday all recent messages containing the name of the filmmaker or her feature film.

The director's first laurels, notably at the Golden Globes at the end of February, had first brought her praise in China.

But comments attributed to her in an American magazine in 2013, where she seemed to criticize her country of origin, then resurfaced, casting a shadow on the picture. The release of her film in China was cancelled.

I think Chinese films will gain in quality and she is a very good example for Chinese directors, praised Yuan Min, a 38-year-old woman who works in the legal sector.