Los Angeles: The Best Director Oscars 2021 award goes to Chloe Zhao for Nomadland. She has become the first woman of color to win the award and the second woman to win this award ‘Best Director’ at Oscars. The first woman was Katheryn Bigelow who received the award for The Hurt Locker. Chloe Zhao was also the first woman to get four Oscar nominations in a single year, in the Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture categories. Chloe Zhao at Oscars in her winning speech said: “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other”.

Chloe Zhao’s Oscars Winning Speech:

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The official Instagram handle of Nomadland the film shared a post congratulating the director for the big win. “Congratulations to Chloé Zhao for winning the Academy Award for BEST DIRECTOR. #Oscars #NMDLND”, read the caption. Check out the post here:

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Nomadland stars Frances McDormand as a vandwelling woman who leaves her hometown of Empire, Nevada, after her husband dies and the sole industry closes down, to be houseless and travel around the United States. It also features David Strathairn in a supporting role, as well as real-life nomads Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells as fictionalized versions of themselves. Many of those whom Zhao cast as nomads in the film are real-life nomads, with only a handful of professional actors in featured roles. The film is based on the 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder.