Zhao's script and film are loosely based on Jessica Bruder's 2017 nonfiction book "Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century." In a way, the book is an extension of her 2014 cover story for Harper's Magazine titled "The End of Retirement." She conveys the realistic struggle of older Americans who are ...

Perhaps the loudest clarion call against the film arrived in February, when Wilfred Chan published a piece for Vulture called “What Nomadland Gets Wrong About Gig Labor.” Chan's argument, which others have also made, is that Zhao's film glosses over the harshest realities of life under Amazon, ignoring the more biting ...

Where was Nomadland Filmed? Nomadland was filmed in Badlands National Park, Custer State Park, Desert Rose RV Park, Fernley, Hadlock's Shady Spot RV Park, Midwest Theater, Quartzsite Yacht Club Restaurant Bar, Scenic, Scottsbluff, T-Rocks, Wall and Wall Drug Store.

Nomadland teeters on the edge of documentary because many of its elements are based on true events. The film was inspired by Jessica Bruder's 2017 non-fiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America. So, if the people in Nomadland feel real, it's because they are.

Nomadland Analysis: Themes of Community & Isolation After recently losing her husband, Fern's town is immediately dispanded when the local gypsum plant is forced to close. This sets the thematic tone for the rest of the film, as a state of isolation has been thrust upon Fern due to the loss of her community.

Written and directed by Chloé Zhao who Best Director Oscar award, Nomadland is based on a non-fiction book of the same name by Jessica Bruder. To research for the book, Jessica Bruder spent years following and living with the real-life nomads. She also had a secondhand van, which she named Halen.

The censorship efforts appear linked to comments made by Zhao in 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine, in which she described being a teenager in China as a “a place where there are lies everywhere”.

So while the film's two main characters, Fern and Dave, are fictional and played by professional thesps (in Dave's case, the always-great David Strathairn), many of the others are the actual van-dwellers from Bruder's book.

Nomadland: Jessica Bruder details the the gritty true story behind the Oscar-winning film. “I knew it was bad when I would get back from the road and suddenly feel my apartment – a tiny one bed in New York - felt too big,” says Jessica Bruder.

Nomadland is one of only six movies focused on the lives and stories of women ever to win Best Picture. That's in 93 years. Most notably, Fern and her movie aren't tangled up in a romance, whether with a gang member, a nightclub owner, a poor artist, a bon vivant, or a fish.

The 60-something Fern – played by Frances McDormand – has taken to a life on the road after losing her job, home and husband in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. Zhao nods at the idea that Nomadland has feminist qualities. “I think so. I mean, it depends how you want to look at it.

So while the film's two main characters, Fern and Dave, are fictional and played by professional thesps (in Dave's case, the always-great David Strathairn), many of the others are the actual van-dwellers from Bruder's book.

“Nomadland” becomes more than just a fictional account of a fascinating woman as it also reminds us how many people are out there with stories to tell and dreams going unfulfilled. And yet it never wallows in grief or misery. Of course, grief is always there, hitching a ride.

Like in Zhao's previous films Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider, the director cast non-professional actors, in this case real-life nomads, to play versions of themselves. In adapting the book for the screen, Zhao told Deadline that the real-life elements helped shape the character of Fern.

Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Director, Nomadland is directed by Chloe Zhao, starring Frances McDormand as a fictional protagonist alongside the real-life nomads featured in Bruder's book, who appear as themselves.