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Chloe Zhao completed her awards season sweep on Sunday, taking home the Academy Award for Best Director for her stunning 2020 film,
Nomadland. With the win, Zhao becomes the first woman of color, and second woman ever, to take home the Oscars' top directing honor.
The Chinese filmmaker and
Promising Young Woman's
Emerald Fennell became just the sixth and seventh female nominees in the history of the category with their nods this year; Kathryn Bigelow is the only other woman to win Best Director, for 2009's
Oklahoman
For more than a century, cinema has been a favored American way to tell stories of different peoples and cultures.
But the mainstream movie industry hasn't always treated Native American stories fairly or authentically.
"If you look at Native representation in history, it's been pretty bad. So, almost showing any truthful, real version of Native people is humanizing. ... I think anytime we show Native people kind of on their terms and in their environments, we're humanizing (them) on the screen and we're changing the narrative that history has kind of laid on us — history and Hollywood," said Sterlin Harjo, a Seminole and Muscogee (Creek) filmmaker, native Oklahoman and film festival favorite, in a 2020 interview.