The march of "Nomadland" towards the Oscars continues: after the Golden Globes, the film by director Chloe Zhao took home four awards from the North American Critics' Association.
But to ruin the celebrations of the Critics Choice Awards came ferocious attacks from Beijing, plus the news that Michael Wolf Snyder, the film's sound engineer, took his own life a few days ago at the age of 35 after a long fight against the film. depression.
Chloe dedicated the new four awards (Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography) to Snyder after David, the young man's father, confirmed his tragic gesture on Facebook.
It was David, a psychiatrist by profession, who discovered the body of his son after he had lost contact with him for days: "The lockdown from Covid had a role", he explained, but Michael "seemed to be better and was happy for the series of nominations received by Nomadland ", even though" he was probably already gone before his victory at the Golden Globes ".
With the tragedy of the disappearance of one of her closest collaborators - Snyder had also worked with her on "Rider" - the controversy about Zhao rebounded from China contributed to disturbing the path of "Nomadland" towards the Academy Awards.
After being praised as an example of "national pride", the Beijing-born filmmaker who studied in Britain and the US was attacked on social media in Mandarin for "insulting" her country of origin with comments on the censorship of the 'Great Firewall' dating back to a decade ago.
Heavy comments appeared on Chinese social media last week, accusing Chloe of "slandering" China and of "treason".
There are two offending sentences: in addition to the one on censorship, which dates back to 2013, there is an interview by the director on an Australian online site in which she says that "the United States is now my country".
Amid calls for a boycott of the film, the advertisements disappeared overnight, and now the release of "Nomadland" in Chinese cinemas is even in doubt: it was scheduled for April 23, but the date has since been canceled. , pending further developments.
(HANDLE).
