Chloé Zhao and Yuh-Jung Youn make history at the Oscars

At the last night’s Oscars 2021, Chloé Zhao made history by becoming the first Asian woman and the first woman of color to win an Oscar for directing for her feature film Nomadland. Zhao is only the second woman in 93 years of Oscars to win the Best Director (in 1994, Kathryn Bigelow won for “The Hurt Locker”).

Nomadland is Zhao’s third feature film. Produced by Searchlight, Nomadland is a drama about a widow in her 60s named Fern (played by Frances McDormand). She loses her job in the Great Recession and travels the United States in a van. Zhao wrote, directed, produced, and edited the movie. Nomadland was nominated for six awards including Best Actress (which McDormand won) and Best Picture.
Nomadland swept the awards circuit making Chloé Zhao the most decorated director in a single awards season. She won the best director awards at the Directors Guild Awards, the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, and the BAFTAs.

In her acceptance speech, Zhao talked about her childhood and what inspired her to keep going when things got hard.

Zhao said:
“And I think it goes back to something I learned when I was a kid. When I was growing up in China, my dad and I used to play this game. We would memorize classic Chinese poems and texts, and we would recite it together and try to finish each other’s sentences.”
Zhao quoted the phrase 人之初，性本善, from the Chinese text “The Three Character Classic”. When translated it means: “People, at birth, are inherently good.”
Zhao went on to say: “Those six letters had such a great impact on me when I was a kid… And I still truly believe them today, even though sometimes it may seem like the opposite is true. But I have always found goodness in the people I met — everywhere I went in the world.”
Zhao’s next feature film is the Marvel movie “Eternals.”

Yuh-Jung Youn wins Best Supporting Actress

Yuh-Jung Youn became the first Korean to win an acting award at the Oscars and the second Asian woman to win an award for acting. Yuh-Jung Youn won the Best Supporting Actress for her performance of the grandmother Soon-ja in Minari. Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, Minari is a semi-autobiographical tale of a South Korean family who moves to rural Arkansas in the 1980s to start a farm. While she might have received international recognition for Minari, Yuh-Jung Youn’s career in Korea spans over five decades and includes numerous movies and television series.

In her acceptance speech, she addressed the fellow nominees: “I don’t believe in competition… How can I win over Glenn Close?… All the nominees, five nominees, we were the winner for different movies. We played different roles — so we cannot compete [against] each other.”
She went on to say: “Tonight, I’m here, I just have a little bit more luck, I think, maybe. I’m luckier than you. And also maybe it’s American hospitality for the Korean actor? I’m not sure.”

Source: Variety