Interview with Chloé Zhao, member of the Feature Films Jury

As a member of the Jury, how do you approach the films in the Official Selection?

I try to look at everything with curiosity. Before the screening I try to not talk to people and stay present and stay embodied and try to not just intellectually experience the films but really feel them in my body. Our modern life doesn’t really give us as much opportunities to ground into the body. If I’m too in my head at the beginning, I’m trying to do some breathing and relax before the screening.

There is a kind of restraint and delicacy in your gaze. At the same time, your films contain scenes of great emotional intensity. How do you balance those two sides?

I like tension when there’s great polarity in the scene or in the sequence. A film will lose its heartbeat if it just always stays in a similar level of tension. Life is like that. Sometimes it could be incredibly peaceful and quiet and then suddenly something could happen externally but also internally to a person. I think it’s purposely crafted in a way so the audience can never get too comfortable.

You often film lonely characters, but your films never feel pessimistic. Can solitude also be a form of freedom?

I think we live in a very conformist culture. There is also a lack of space and time and rituals for us to connect internally with our own center and who we truly are. Only in solitude can you get in touch with your inner divinity. This is why our greatest teachers and prophets, they all go into nature, they all go into solitude to come back with the messages that people needed at the time.

Your films seem fascinated by people in motion: nomads, travelers, people between two lives. Where does this attraction to wandering characters come from?

I think human beings have been nomadic for a long time. This idea of living in a city is a very modern thing if you think about the length of human civilization. We start questioning this border of, for example, ‘this is my yard, this is my city, this is my country.’ We forgot the interdependence and we forgot we’re one species and most importantly we forgot our relationship with nature.

You film landscapes like emotional spaces. What comes first for you: a place… or the characters?

Always a place. The landscape is an emotional landscape. The desert means something, the plains mean something, the forest means something. They all have a quality that is inside of ourselves as well. Once the landscape is chosen, the archetypes come with the landscape. If you are in an ancient forest, then you think of a witch, you think of a woman. Because we are nature.

Did you immediately associate the forest to a woman in Hamnet?

I think the forest is inherently very feminine. In the forest, you can’t see everything. The forest is terrifying because it’s so hidden, just like the depth of the ocean. The forest just feels so untamable in a way. I think the fear our patriarchal culture has towards the forest makes it seem even more feminine.

What do you think about the idea of ecofeminism?

Patriarchal culture and the economic system that we live in is rooted in the principle of expansion and extraction. We put us above nature. It’s not just women in nature that suffer from that. It’s all things of feminine nature, feminine essence and feminine consciousness. How we treat our animals, how we treat our nature, how we treat our elders, how we treat our own bodies, is how we treat women.

You won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director for Nomadland. What do awards like these actually change in a career?

It allowed me some grace. A bit of a grace period. It helps to convince others to trust you more. But at the end of the day, filmmakers know it doesn’t change the quality of your next film. If anything, it makes people judge you a bit harsher.

You went from very independent cinema to a project like Eternals. What did you discover about yourself working on that scale?

I genuinely wanted to make a Marvel film. I was also unapologetically myself as well. I learned it’s really important to consider whether your intentions and its own built-in system and audience is a good match. Eternals is very much about our relationship with the planet. When you’re trying to make a film that basically denounces the system that this whole genre is built on, which is power, you have to think about if this is the best way to go about it. I have learned that if people are ready to listen and to forcing something in itself is to fall into the trap of this power system.

Which filmmakers or films have most deeply shaped your artistic vision?

Wong Kar-wai, Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog. In blockbuster filmmaking, I’d say James Cameron’s work. He had been exploring nature and our humans’ relationship with nature and femininity for a long time, really ahead of his time.