Zhao Ting

Chinese director Zhao Ting has taken home the top award at this year's Venice Film Festival with her film, Nomadland, on September 12.

Also known as Chloe Zhao, the Beijing native who moved to the United States when she was 15, is the first Chinese female director to win the festival's top prize, and also the first woman to win the prize in a decade.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year's Venice Film Festival was held as a combination of in-person and virtual events. As travel restrictions prevented her attendance, Zhao accepted the Golden Lion award via video link.

The film, which is based on Jessica Bruder's 2017 non-fiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, tells the story of an out-of-work American woman who becomes a modern-day nomad. It will screen at major festivals in Toronto, New York and Telluride, as the events agreed to put aside their rivalry to cooperate amid the pandemic.