Screen Talk: Chloé Zhao

With her first two features, Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider, Chloé Zhao announced herself as a singular voice in contemporary American cinema. Embracing a documentary aesthetic, she turned her camera towards communities whose lives have often passed by unnoticed. The Rider, in particular, possessed an intensity that gave the film a rare emotional range. It also proved to be a breakthrough work. She followed it with Nomadland. Essaying the life of a woman who, late in life, chooses to drop out of ‘civilised’ society and to forge her own, nomadic path through the American West, it skilfully balanced the physical and emotional lives of her characters. Following The Eternals, one of the most singular films in the Marvel canon, Zhao attends the Festival with Hamnet, her take on Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed historical novel (co-written with the author). We welcome her to discuss the film and her career.

Ian Haydn Smith

Hosted by Rhianna Dhillon, film and TV critic and broadcaster.

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