Oscars 2021 | Chloé Zhao wins best director award for Nomadland – All you need to know

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Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao won the title of 'Oscars 2021 Best Director'. The filmmaker bagged the coveted golden statuette for her movie Nomadland. The honour was conferred upon the 39-year-old at the 93rd Academy Award held on April 25.

Nomadland, for which Zhao also won the award at the 74th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), is essentially a story revolving around a seemingly ordinary woman in her sixties who loses everything in the Great Recession and sets out on a journey through the American West, living like a nomad.

With the win, Chinese-born filmmaker Zhao became the first Asian woman and second woman ever to win best director at the Academy Awards.

It was the first Oscar for Zhao, 39, who featured real-life nomads alongside actress Frances McDormand to show the lives of older Americans who travel from job to job to try and scrape together a living.

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Zhao was born in China and lived in Beijing until age 14, when she went to boarding school in London and later finished high school in Los Angeles.

For the 2021 Oscar edition, the Academy had shortlisted five nominees for the best director title. They were: Chloé Zhao for Nomadland, Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman, Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round, David Fincher for Mank and Lee Isaac Chung for Minari.