Chloé Zhao’s new film Nomadland has been censored in China due to comments she made about the country back in 2013.
Despite the film’s status as a universal critical success and awards season favourite, its publicity has now been censored in the director’s country of birth.
As reported by NME, showtimes for the film were removed from ticketing websites and references to it began to disappear from Chinese media as of Friday, March 5th.
According to The Guardian, a Nomadland-related hashtag was also removed from the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, along with a message saying it was taken down “according to relevant laws, regulations and political policies”.
Although publicity material has been largely removed, Variety reports that Nomadland is still set to be released in China.
The censorship appears to stem from a resurfaced 2013 interview in which Zhao, who moved to the UK as a teenager, referred to China as “a place where there are lies everywhere”.
As reported by The Guardian, the comments appeared in an article by Filmmaker magazine that was removed from the publication’s website in February. However, a version of the article can still be found via online archives.
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On top of that, it seems that a recent misquote in an interview with news.com.au only added fuel to the fire.
The article, which focused on the themes of home and identity, incorrectly quoted Zhao as saying that the US is “now [her] country, ultimately.” The story has since been updated to clarify that Zhao in fact said that it is “not” her country.
In spite of any controversy, Zhao recently became the first-ever Asian woman to win Best Director at the Golden Globes. As if that wasn’t enough, she was also only the second female to ever win the award, following Barbra Streisand in 1984.
Check out the trailer for Nomadland:
