Oscar Screening Party Cut Off In China as Winning Director, Zhao Makes History

Award winning director Chloe Zhao made Oscar history as the first Asian woman and second woman ever to win the award for the best director at the Academy awards. Zhao won the award for her work in the film “Nomadland” a story that cast real life Nomads, to show the lives of older Americans who travel from job to job trying to scrape together a living.

The movie also won the Oscar for best actress for Frances McDormand, one of the few actresses to achieve the “triple crown” of acting. Zhao was also nominated for best film editing and best adapted screenplay but did not win.

However in Shanghai, a live stream of the awards show hosted by Zhao’s Alma mater New York University ran into China’s Firewall, as the organizer’s access to his virtual private network (VPN) service was suddenly cut off and blocked for nearly two hours.

This, added to the fact that they were the only ones airing this years Oscars as Chinese media regulators, decided not to air it this year. Hong Kong TV audiences were also unable to watch it because free-to-air broadcaster television broadcast limited (TVB), declined to air the Academy Awards for the first time since 1969, siting commercial reasons.

This year, “Do Not Split,” a documentary about the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests also known as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, was nominated for an Oscar.

Anders Hammer, director and co-producer of the documentary said his team expected the Chinese government to react to the documentary, but not in this way.”It’s basically a movie about a big group of mostly young people standing up against Beijing,” Hammer said.