Not only was Chinese filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer Chloé Zhao the first woman to get four Oscar nominations in a single year, but she also became earlier this year the first woman of color and the second woman ever to win the Academy Award for best director. She is known for movies about journeys of self-discovery and an unusual production style.
Zhao grew up in Beijing and attended a boarding school in England before moving to the United States to finish high school.
“I was a pretty free-spirited kid. I was part of a notorious group of troublemakers who didn't do well in school but had a great time exploring Beijing from the inside out” she once explained.
She later enrolled in Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she studied politics with a minor in film studies. Her fascination with learning people's stories led her to transition into filmmaking at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, whose artistic director was Spike Lee.
During this pivotal time, she started creating short films and working on her first feature film, “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” about Native American siblings living in South Dakota.
In 2017, she wrote, directed, and produced the celebrated “The Rider,” a movie about a rising rodeo star who gets into a near-fatal accident. In 2018, she became the first-ever recipient of the Bonnie Award, celebrating female filmmakers.
Studying marginalized communities in the U.S. and casting non-actors to deliver compassionate and personal drama in a form of fictionalized reality became her hallmark.
"Wherever I've gone in life, I've always felt like an outsider. So I'm naturally drawn towards other people who live on the periphery, or don't live mainstream lifestyles" she once stated.
For her third feature film, “Nomadland”, about the nomadic lifestyle of a middle-aged American woman who loses everything in the Great Recession, she won once again numerous accolades, turning her into the most nominated woman ever in a single year.
In recent years, she has shot to stardom, becoming one of the most talented leading filmmakers of the industry. Given her previous success, Marvel Studios fans are eager to watch her latest work, Marvel’s “The Eternals,” released later this year.