Oscars 2021: Chloe Zhao makes history with Oscars wins for Best Director, Film

Chloé Zhao has made history as she became the first woman of colour – and only the second woman at all – to win the best director award at the Oscars.

Chinese-born, British-educated, US-based Zhao also picked up the award for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards. Given the stature of her achievement, Zhao also becomes just the second woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win Best Director.

The talented lady is known for her quietly compelling portraits of people, often played by non-professional actors, in the margins of society in the American West.

“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, no matter how difficult it is to do that,” Zhao says of her Academy Award.

“I have always found goodness in the people I met everywhere I went in the world. So this is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold onto the goodness and themselves, and…in each other.”

Nomadland, which stars Francis McDormand as a modern-day nomad living out of a van owing to the economic impact of the Great Recession, is Zhao’s third feature film following her previous critically acclaimed efforts for Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider.