Golden Globes: The coronation of Chloé Zhao and the breakthrough of women and platforms in cinema
Director Chloé Zhao at the Golden Globe award for Best Dramatic Film for “Nomadland”.
© Peter Kramer / NBC Handout via REUTERS
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
6 min
The triumph of “Nomadland” by Chinese-American director Chloé Zhao, awarded Best Dramatic Film and Best Director at the 2021 Golden Globes, confirms a major trend in the world of cinema: the irresistible rise of women and platforms in the cinematographic world .
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Last September, the Mostra awarded three Golden Lions to three women.
At the time, some still wanted to believe in an exceptional decision due to an exceptional pandemic.
Today, the precursor aspect of the 2020 edition of the International Venice Film Festival seems more and more evident.
More than the situation in which the decision was made, the film careers of Hong Kong director Ann Hui and British actress Tilda Swinton are extraordinary and deserve a Golden Lion of Honor.
Chloé Zhao, soon to be 39 years old and in the cinematographic firmament
The same goes for
Nomadland.
Chloe Zhao's film was one of eight out of 18 women's films vying for the Golden Lion.
But the third feature film of the young American director does not owe its crowning glory in Venice to the absence of other films prevented by the pandemic, but indeed because of the feat of the filmmaker who will celebrate on March 31 her 39th anniversary. anniversary.
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The Chinese-American, born in Beijing in 1982, spent her childhood in China before moving first to London and then to the United States to study political science in Massachusetts, before turning to film training. At New York.
From her first feature film,
The songs that my brothers learned me
, selected at the Sundance Film Festival and the Directors' Fortnight in 2015, she was very noticed by the film industry, before being propelled in 2017 to the firmament. of world cinema with the surprise success of his second feature film,
The Rider
, with the
Art Cinéma for best film at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.
Since,
Chloé Zhao's talent wowed the members of the jury at the Mostra and now that of the Golden Globes, after also winning the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival.
"Nomadland", a story carried by a woman
And it is perhaps not insignificant that the story of
Nomadland
is carried by a woman, wonderfully embodied by the actress Frances McDorman who makes us experience the upheaval of a life and parts of an entire society.
First a widow, then dismissed, she becomes a homeless man wandering with her van tinkered between “bullshit jobs” and the quest for a new community by the roadside.
A portrait as powerful as it is poetic on and with the new “pioneers” of poverty.
The triumph of
Nomadland
(which for the director represents "
a pilgrimage through pain and healing
") has transformed the story of these neglected persons in American society in addition to a strong signal for cinema and women directors around the world. .
Because, already at the Venice Film Festival, Chloé Zhao was only the fifth woman and the first of Chinese origin to win the Golden Lion, after the German Margarethe von Trotta (
The Years of Lead
, 1981), the French Agnès Varda (
Sans toit ni loi
, 1985), the Indian Mira Nair
(Le Mariage des monsons
, 2001) and the American Sofia Coppola (
Somewhere
, 2010).
The second female director crowned by the Golden Globes
Today, Zhao has become the second woman in Golden Globes history to win the top honor, 37 years after
Barbra Streisand's
Yentl
.
The rise of female directors seems to be a real global phenomenon, because, in addition to the Venice Film Festival, Toronto and the Golden Globes, there is also the meteoric success of the comedy
Salut, Maman
, by Jia Ling, in China.
With more than 3.6 billion yuan (450 million euros) in box office receipts, it is already the biggest success of a director in the history of cinema in China.
In the meantime,
Chloé Zhao's
Nomadland has
established itself and is also a
landmark
in another way and thus confirms a historic turning point for the film industry.
A revolution already accepted and conceptualized by the director of the Mostra.
Last September, Alberto Barbera confirmed to RFI that Venice (unlike the Cannes Film Festival) will continue to accept films from Netflix and other competing platforms: “
We are moving towards a kind of coexistence between streaming and distribution. in the rooms.
We have to find new rules.
Streaming is a reality with which to coexist.
"
First film crowned with simultaneous theatrical / SVOD release
Today,
Nomadland
has become the first film to be
awarded
a Golden Lion and a Golden Globe with a simultaneous theatrical / SVOD release.
Because, in January, the Searchlight studio (which belongs to Disney) released Chloe Zhao's film simultaneously in American theaters and for the 38.8 million American subscribers of the Hulu platform.
After the pride of Netflix,
Roma
, of Mexican Alfonso Cuaron,
Nomadland
has therefore become the second Golden Lion attached to a platform.
It remains to be seen, if Chloe Zhao will also succeed in Cuaron's feat of winning the ultimate Oscar award and continuing to shake the cinematographic universe.
Answer on April 25.
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