Nomadland, Chloé Zhao’s acclaimed feature, has recently picked up two Golden Globes and four BAFTAs, as well as awards at the Venice and Toronto international film festivals. The good news is that the award-winning film will receive its Irish and UK premiere on April 30, courtesy of Star on Disney+.

Based on the remarkable book of the same name by Jessica Bruder, two-time Academy Award-winner (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman who packs her van to live as a modern-day nomad following the economic collapse of a company town in Nevada. This empathic drama set against the sprawling, naturally stunning backdrop of the American west also stars David Strathairn and real-life nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells (who all feature in the book), in what is a beautifully shot, quietly poetic film about personal rediscovery.

It has been nominated for 6 Academy Awards:

Nomadland has swept through the Hollywood awards circuit in the past few months, making it a favourite to win the big award – Best Picture – at the Oscars later this month. While the film is also up for Best Editing, Zhao is nominated for Best Director and for adapting the screenplay, and Frances McDormand is up for Best Actress. Cinematographer Joshua James Richards is also a contender for his stunning cinematography.

Frances McDormand in the film NOMADLAND. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2020 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved

It was shot with a crew of just 25 people: 

The crew travelled together for five months, visiting several States, and living much like the nomads they were attempting to capture. McDormand has marvelled that the cast and crew became "like an organism". “It was much more about honouring the process of a person’s life than a process of making a movie,” she said in a press conference.

The critics are raving:

Before big-Hollywood accolades from The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and BAFTA, director Chloé Zhao was named Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, the Indiana Film Journalists Association, and the 2020 Critics Polls for IndieWire.

In an early five-star review from the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: "This quiet, self-effacing performance may be the best of [McDormand's] career so far."

It features real modern-day nomads:

The film was adapted from a nonfiction book called Nomadland: Surviving America In the 21st Century, as well as inspired by radical nomadist and anti-capitalist Bob Wells, who plays himself in the film. Most of the people McDormand's character meets in the film are largely real nomads. Some of them, like McDormand's fictional character, had their lives displaced by the 2008 financial crash.

NOMADLAND. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2020 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved

Frances McDormand hand-picked Chloé Zhao: 

McDormand saw The Rider – one of Zhao's other films – at the Toronto International Film Festival, and knew she was the person to helm the ambitious project.

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