Taking home the Academy Awards, or Oscars, for Best Director and Best Picture would normally be a notable event, but apparently not in China for Chloé Zhao, who won the two prizes for her movie “Nomadland.”
State media outlets were silent about the accolades for the Chinese-born Zhao, with no mention on either CCTV or Xinhua.
Sunday’s awards ceremony was not aired live in China or in Hong Kong.
News of her win was also censored on China’s highly controlled internet. According to the Associated Press, a post about Zhao’s win by a movie-related account on China’s Weibo microblogging site was censored a few hours after it was posted.
Some users had to resort to using the code “zt,” Zhao’s initials using her Chinese name Zhao Ting, to talk about Zhao.
A popular movie app, Douban, banned even searching for “Nomadland” and “Zhao Ting.”
Zhao left China at the age of 14 to go to boarding school in London and later moved to Los Angeles.
Some social media users in China said she insulted the country in past comments when she was nominated for a Golden Globe in March, but in her acceptance speeches, she was apolitical and even recalled her childhood in China fondly.
"Nomadland” had been scheduled for release in China on April 23, but that never happened, the Associated Press reported. No new release date has been set.
Zhao is the first Asian woman and second woman to win the Best Director award.
