New York: This year’s Academy Awards ceremony was full of historic moments, from Chloe Zao being the first non-white woman to win the best director to Yuh-Jung Youn’s best-supporting actress win to Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson’s makeup and hair win.
Chinese-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao became the first Asian woman and only the second woman ever to win best director at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
The 39-year-old also took home the award for best picture, for the story of financially stretched van dwellers in the United States in Nomadland, which stars actress Frances McDormand and a number of real-life nomads who travel the US looking for work. McDormand won best actress for the role – her third.
Zhao was born in China and lived in Beijing until age 14, when she went to boarding school in London. She later moved to Los Angeles where she finished high school and then attended film school in New York.
British actor Daniel Kaluuya, who first came to international attention in the 2017 black comedy horror Get Out, won best supporting actor for his role as the late Black Panther activist Fred Hampton in the drama, Judas and the Black Messiah.
Yuh-Jung Youn has become the first Korean actor to win an Academy Award. She claimed the Oscar for best supporting actress Sunday night for her performance in “Minari” as a grandmother who moves from South Korea to live with her daughter’s farming family in Arkansas.
Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson became the first black women to win for best hair and make-up at the Oscars, for their work on Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
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