The FILMFEST closing film of last year’s programme, Nomadland, by Chloé Zhao is the winning film at yesterday’s Academy Awards. The work about modern nomads in the USA won Best Picture, Chloé Zhao became the second woman in the history of the awards ever to win Best Director and Frances McDormand received the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Other Oscar films include Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg (Best International Film) and Sound of Metal (Best Editing) by Darius Marder.

In Sound of Metal, the band musician and drummer Ruben has to bear a heavy blow: he loses his sense of hearing. Film editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen received the prestigious trophy for Best Editing. The Oscar for Best International Film was awarded to Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg about four friends who start an alcoholic self-experiment.

»We are very happy for the award for these three films we had in our programme last year,« says FILMFEST director Albert Wiederspiel. »And what a great success for Chloé Zhao, she is a very unique director, with her own personal handwriting. We congratulate her and her wonderful leading actress Francis McDormand most heartily.«

FILMFEST HAMBURG has already screened all of Chloé Zhao’s feature-length films: 2015’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me and 2017’s The Rider, which won the Art Cinema Prize, among others.

The 93rd Academy Awards took place on 25 April in Los Angeles.