Beijing, March 2 (Reporter Ren Siyu) On March 1, Beijing time, the 78th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards was announced, and Beijing girl Zhao Ting won the Best Director Award with "The Land of No One", becoming the first Asian woman in the history of the Golden Globe Awards to win the Best Director.
This year's Golden Globe Awards ceremony was broadcast live online from two places, and on the screen, Zhao Ting, who wore two braided braids and a green T-shirt, smiled and thanked everyone:
"Thank you to my peers who were nominated with me, thank you for making great movies, that's why I fell in love with making movies and telling stories, because it gave us a chance to laugh and cry together. Thank you to each and every one of you for making it possible to do this passion. ”
Source: Video screenshot.
Who is Zhao Ting?
From last year to this year, Zhao Ting's name has frequently appeared at multiple film awards ceremonies.
Her third feature film, "The Land of NoBody", has won the lion award, the highest gold prize at the Venice International Film Festival, the "People's Choice Award" at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Film and many other awards, and is also regarded as a big hit at this year's Oscars.
When she appeared at the Pingyao International Film Festival a few years ago, Zhao Ting's more familiar prefix for domestic audiences was "Song Dandan's stepdaughter".
Zhao Ting was born in Beijing in 1982, she confessed that when she was a child, she was like a "wild child", rebellious and addicted to comics, and when she was a teenager, Zhao Ting went to a British boarding school to study political science, studied political science at The York College in The United States, and later went to the New York University Film School for further study.
The third year of New York University asked for a feature film, but Zhao Ting, who was close to thirty years old, was very confused and could not find the direction of life, so she chose to leave New York and go to the quiet Plains of the United States.
Her first feature film, "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing," was about a pair of brothers and sisters in the American Reservation in the Western United States, "at that time, there was always a lot of concern about the high suicide rate of american Indian young people, so I went there."
Stills from "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing".
But the filming of this film was not smooth sailing. Film investors repeatedly broke the contract, Zhao Ting had to pay half of the crew's honorarium out of her own pocket, once thin to 88 pounds, on the first day before the start of filming, the investor suddenly withdrew, returned home at night, Zhao Ting found that the home was stolen, some valuable things and hard disks used for shooting were all missing, she said, at that time, she felt that the three years she had prepared for the film were all in vain.
In the end, she made a film with only 100,000 US dollars, and "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" was shortlisted for the "Director's Fortnight" section of the Sundance Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival, and she also won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Female Director for this film.
"I did learn a lot along the way, and by the time I got to Knight, I only had eighty thousand dollars to get a good handle on this kind of small-budget film."
After filming the first feature film, Zhao Ting especially wanted to make a story about western cowboys. She meets a gifted horse trainer, Brady Jandro, and based on his real experience, she creates "Knight": the story of a good horse trainer who is forced to end his cowboy racing career due to a serious head injury, but he is not willing to give up his dream.
Stills from "The Knight".
Ethnic minorities, wounded cowboys, vagrants... Zhao Ting's camera is aimed at some slightly marginal social groups, paying attention to the hearts of ordinary people, and the actors who appear in the film are mostly non-professional actors, and the protagonist of "Knight" is Brady himself, in addition to the actors, the entire crew is only 6 people.
"Because of these limitations, I learned to make good use of everything I have in front of me, but instead presented a more simple sense of reality than I thought." For us, 'truth' is the only thing we can afford. Zhao Ting once said.
"Knight" won the art film award in the "Director's Fortnight" unit of the 70th Cannes Film Festival, and Zhao Ting began to be known to more people.
How to make "No Man's Land"?
In 2017, "Knight" and "Three Billboards" were shortlisted for the special screening unit of the Toronto International Film Festival, and Francis McDormand, the star of "Three Billboards", was shocked after watching "Knights", and she asked loudly - "Who is Zhao Ting?" ”
This also led to the collaboration between the two in "No Man's Land".
Stills from "The Land of NoBody".
Adapted from the documentary work of the same name by American writer Jessica Brudd, "The Land of Nowhere" tells the story of a sixty-year-old woman who lost everything in the Great Depression in the United States and became a "modern nomad" living in a van, wandering while looking for a temporary job.
Francis McDormand and producer Peter Spears bought the rights after reading the original book, and later, director Zhao Ting became their first choice.
Source: Screenshot of Weibo.
"The Land of No One" starred McDormand, which is also the first time zhao Ting has truly cooperated with a Hollywood actor, a group of people who have gone through 4 months of nomadic life in a van, and there are still many actors in the film who are real "nomads".
At the Golden Globes, Zhao Ting thanked the "nomads" who shared their stories, quoting a character in the film who said: "Compassion can break down all barriers and allow us to push our hearts." Your pain is also my pain, and they are intertwined and we can feel it. ”
McDormand once said of Zhao Ting: "When many unknowns are encountered in the production of low-cost, improvised road movies, people want to have a stable finger to point the way. That's what you get from Zhao Ting: a steady hand and a clearly marked roadmap... She has a magical skill in navigating between tenderness and sensitivity – which makes her storytelling very authentic and original. It is precisely for all these reasons that Zhao Ting has won the high respect of her colleagues. ”
What would it be like to direct the Marvel series?
Now, after winning multiple film awards for the third feature film, Zhao Ting is known as an outstanding female director.
Many people in the outside world commented that she finally tore off the label of "Song Dandan's stepdaughter". But for Zhao Ting, she may not mind this label, but more of a grateful family.
Zhao Ting once said that they gave themselves a lot of space and were very supportive of their film career. "They encouraged me to go my own way, to endure these setbacks, and most importantly these spiritual encouragements, which I think are the most precious to me."
In "The Depths of Happiness", Song Dandan recorded the past with her stepdaughter Zhao Ting, in 2017, Zhao Ting took "Knight" to the first Pingyao International Film Festival, and Song Dandan took Batu to Pingyao to celebrate Zhao Ting.
After Zhao Ting won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, Song Dandan also happily congratulated:
"A Chinese girl who doesn't know English, who went abroad to study at the age of 16, chose a path that we never favored but could only respect. Today, fighting for other people's strengths at the home of others, we have achieved such recognition and created such a record. You are the legend of our family, and I believe that your story will also inspire countless Chinese children. ”
"Asian filmmakers", "female directors"... Regarding the various identity labels that have been labeled, Zhao Ting once said in an interview that this is just the icing on the cake, the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
Speaking about the greatest significance of the film to herself, she quoted a sentence directed by Ang Lee:
"The movie is not to take everyone into the darkness, but to take everyone through the darkness, test it in the darkness, and then go back to the sun, you will understand how to face life." 」
It is reported that "No One Land" has been scheduled for release in April, and Zhao Ting's next movie is also highly anticipated - the Marvel movie "Eternals".
From directing small-budget independent films to marvel series films, this change has surprised many people. Zhao Ting brought her love of comics into the design of "Eternals", marvel studios president Kevin Feige said, Zhao Ting brought her own design of multiple visual effects, "her initial sales are very attractive." Frankly, one of the reasons we moved this film forward was because she brought a vision to it."
In "Eternal Family", what kind of performance Zhao Ting will bring, the audience will also wait and see. (End)
Source: China News Network