Guy Lodge Film CriticOne day after premiering and receiving the most rapturous reviews of any film in competition, U.S.-based Chinese director Chloé Zhao has won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for her film “Nomadland,” a documentary-influenced road movie starring Frances McDormand as an itinerant widow traveling across America.
The lineup had seemed unpredictably competitive until yesterday, when roaring applause and acclaim established the Searchlight release as the one to beat.
Blanchett’s jury did not resist.The win makes Zhao the first female filmmaker to take Venice’s top prize since Sofia Coppola triumphed with “Somewhere” in 2010, and the first woman of color to lift the trophy since Mira Nair in 2001.
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