The curious censorship of Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland

Fortunes shift quickly in Chinese cyberspace. On March 1, Chloé Zhao, the Beijing-born film director, was the ‘pride of China’, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s The Global Times. Zhao had just won the best director Golden Globe for her film Nomadland, becoming the first Asian woman in history to win the award, and only the second woman full stop. As news of her victory emerged, Chinese social media was awash with congratulatory messages for the 38-year old director.

But the tide soon turned after diligent Chinese netizens dug up comments made by Zhao in a 2013 interview, in which she said that China is a place ‘where there are lies everywhere’; the unearthed remarks triggered accusations of Zhao ‘humiliating China’, with some calling for Nomadland – due for release in China on 23 April – to be banned. The Guardian also reported that promotional material for Nomadland, as well as mentions of it on Weibo, Chinese equivalent to Twitter, had been restricted by Chinese censors, and a hashtag about the film with 87 million views had been removed ‘according to relevant laws, regulations and political policies’.