Chloe Zhao

Born in Beijing on March 31, 1982, Zhao Ting –her real name– is the daughter of the manager of a steel company and a hospital attendant. “I was a rebellious teenager, quite lazy in school, drawing comics,” she explains. As a child, she became fond of cinema with the great successes of Hong Kong, although above all she loved Wong Kar-Wai films such as Happy Together . At the age of 15, her parents sent her to a boarding school in the UK, where she became passionate about Western popular culture.

When her parents divorced, her father got together with Song Dandan , an actress with titles such as The House of Flying Daggers , who put her in contact with the world of cinema. Although the girl ended up studying Political Science at Mount Holyoke College, a prestigious private center for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in the United States, when she finished she studied film production at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where she had as one from his teachers to Spike Lee himself.

Chloé Zhao   made her feature film debut with Songs My Brothers Taugh Me, from 2015, about two young men who live with their mother on a Native American reservation. Shot with non-professional actors, it premiered at Sundance, where it was well-received, then screened at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and earned a Best First Feature nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards. “I grew up in cities in different countries and always felt a sense of loneliness,” she recalls. “Growing up in the concrete jungle, when you are young, that loneliness seems even romantic, but as you get older it becomes harder to bear. When I happened to go to South Dakota, standing face to face with nature, exposed to the weather, in a landscape where you don’t see a single phone line, I finally felt connected to something bigger than myself. That’s when I started wanting to explore this part of the country:

But he began to gain attention when he wrote and directed the 2017 lyric The Rider , casting Brady Jandreau , his riding instructor, as the lead, who struggled to carry on with his occupation after suffering severe head injuries. Although his last name was changed to Blackburn in the film, he dramatized his relationship with his father, a widower, and his mentally handicapped sister, and offered a very positive vision of deep America, where its inhabitants live less dependent on new technologies, and more concerned about their neighbors.

Despite the fact that this film had very high expectations, Chloé Zhao  has proven to be more than a young promise with  Nomadland , another portrait of the most unknown part of the United States. The film has won the Golden Lion in Venice, and has achieved six Oscar nominations. The filmmaker makes history by being the woman who accumulates four for the same work, related to best film -since she is one of the producers-, directing, adapted screenplay -part of a non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder- and editing. In a film, like the previous one, that brings to mind the old westerns, Frances McDormand, also nominated, gives life to Fern, who leaves Empire, the town where she lived happily with her deceased husband, after the factory that fed its inhabitants closes. She will sleep in her caravan, eking out a living from town to town, in whatever occupation she finds. “The nomadic movement has grown a lot in recent years, and massive gatherings of people who lead this lifestyle are organized,” she explains. She herself has traveled the roads from time to time, in a van called Akira -after Katsuhiro Otomo ‘s manga- , which she has bought with her boyfriend, cinematographer Joshua James Richards , also an Academy Award nominee for Nomadland .

Like other independent film wunderkinds, Chloé Zhao  has not been able to resist the call of the ‘majors’. The almighty Disney has recruited her to be in charge of a Marvel superhero film, The Eternals , which has Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek , in front of the cast. “I’m not just the director, I make the movie as a fan. It will be bigger and more spectacular than Avengers: Endgame ”, She has promised her. “I wanted to be a comic book artist, and I’ve been a Marvel fan for a decade.”