{"id":116035,"date":"2025-11-03T18:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116035\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T18:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:40:07","slug":"hamnet-director-chloe-zhao-says-she-is-exploring-making-a-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116035\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hamnet\u2019 Director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao Says She Is “Exploring” Making A Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a conversation with prolific Japanese filmmaker Hirokaza Kore-eda at the ongoing Tokyo<\/a> Film Festival, Hamnet<\/a> director and Oscar-winner Chlo\u00e9 Zhao says that she is exploring making a documentary for her next feature but admits that the genre will take a whole different level of courage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think documentary filmmakers are very brave,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cI\u2019m exploring making one now, but it\u2019s safer for me to make fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also pointed out that marginalized communities in America have often been objectified or shot in unflattering light in documentaries, historically \u2014 another contributing factor to her apprehensiveness to make a doc.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMarginalized communities, like in the reservations or those who live in their vans on the fringes in society, they are studied as a subject or a social issue,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cOften, these cameras are rough and filmed under very unflattering light. But if you\u2019re with them, in their lifestyle, you\u2019re exposed to the most beautiful landscape of America.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was important for me and my cinematographer to use the golden hour. We called it \u2018god\u2019s light,\u2019 because everything blends together. When you watch the sunset, you feel like you can reach a bigger power beyond you,\u201d added Zhao.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, she takes heart, acknowledging that not being an expert in a genre can lend a welcome freshness to making films.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI only saw two and a half westerns when I made my western,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the burden on my shoulders as an American would when making a western.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe took a similar approach to making Hamnet. \u201cWhen I made this Shakespeare, I don\u2019t have the burden of a British filmmaker, or knowing too much about Shakespeare. It\u2019s so sacred.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao shared that she has felt something fundamentally shift in her posture towards filmmaking recently.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn my 30s, when I was making films, it was about chasing as many horizons as possible, but Hamnet was about containing \u2014 one frame, one room,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cI was interested in how to confine everything to one frame and one stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTurning to Kore-eda, Zhao then commented on how she admired the tradition of restraint in his films, which blossom into intimate portraits of characters and ruminations on life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYour films seem to have that comfort, in the details of how a person has lived their lives,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cA lot of times, cinema skips that part: it focuses on the highs and super lows and forgets what we\u2019re doing 80 percent of the time. Your films enlighten us into the comfort of these daily rituals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe said that this attention to life\u2019s little routines and details has also helped her during challenging times.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhenever life gets really crazy, I follow the advice of \u2018just try to do your laundry.\u2019 You know, making a sandwich, drinking water \u2014 that\u2019s what people responded to during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s just do the little things like folding the laundry,\u201d said Zhao.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe admitted to the audience in Tokyo that she struggled immensely in figuring out the ending for Hamnet, which takes place in the Globe Theatre (not a spoiler, Zhao promises).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I saw the ending that I wrote, I said that it didn\u2019t work. I remember Jessie [Buckley] looking at me after we went through all of this, with the look of \u2018This is nothing. It doesn\u2019t really feel like it,\u2019\u201d said Zhao.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep that night. Jessie didn\u2019t sleep that night. I was also going through a personal loss, so I was in a lot of emotional pain. The next morning, when I was going to work, I was in the car in London, and it was raining, and I looked down at my phone, and Jessie had sent me a song called \u2018On the Nature of Daylight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao said that the song from Max Richter has \u201ca very special ability to harmonize your whole body to the world around you.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou suddenly feel like one everything. As I\u2019m listening to the song, I started crying, and I saw myself holding my hand out trying to catch the rain outside the window, because I wanted to reach nature, that I can no longer be afraid of losing my love, because we\u2019re all one, and you can\u2019t lose love. It just transforms into something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was when Zhao found her ending to Hamnet.<\/p>\n

\n\tKore-eda emphasized the importance of a communal experience in watching Hamnet, pleading the audience to catch Zhao\u2019s film in a theater.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlthough I was watching the film on a small screen with just one other person, I was still watching it with someone else, and that cannot be sacrificed, in terms of the communal experience,\u201d said Kore-eda. \u201cThat makes the film \u2013 watching it with someone else. I want that to be maintained, which is why we have this film festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao added: \u201cHamnet is about oneness, and people coming together. That\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for: how do we dissolve the illusion of separation we feel with each other?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Zhao, Kore-eda shared that he also adapts on set from feedback he receives from his actors and cinematographer, and he is not beholden to his storyboards.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf the movement changes, the dialogue has to change too, so I will just rewrite it on set,\u201d said Kore-eda. <\/p>\n

\n\tZhao and Kore-eda both said that cinema is their way of communicating with the world, especially when they struggle to communicate in other ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao said: \u201c[In Hamnet], you see William Shakespeare, as he struggles to connect and communicate in real life, but when he\u2019s on his stage, he communicates everything.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome of my favourite memories is making belief and fantasies, for other people\u2019s memories,\u201d said Zhao.<\/p>\n

\n\tPopping into the Tokyo festival in the middle of his ongoing shoot for his next feature, Kore-eda said that he \u201ccan\u2019t stop making films.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWork-life balance is gone for me for now, as I have had two productions this year, so I\u2019m only working right now,\u201d said Kore-eda. \u201cI\u2019m shooting a movie, and that gives me a lot of joy, I don\u2019t want people to think that you have to be like that to be a film director, but this is the fun part.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added: \u201cI\u2019m like a grandfather, 60 years old, having fun with movies, and that\u2019s the impression that I want to create \u2014 for others to see me and think that it\u2019s fun. I would like them to feel that way when they see me. That\u2019s my work and that\u2019s my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a conversation with prolific Japanese filmmaker Hirokaza Kore-eda at the ongoing Tokyo Film Festival, Hamnet director and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3628,156,3630,82537,409,111,139,69,11081,81055],"class_list":["post-116035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-entertainment","tag-hamnet","tag-hirokazu-kore-eda","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tokyo","tag-tokyo-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}