When Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao first studied Shakespeare at her British boarding school, the young Chinese pupil did not even speak English.

So it has been a long journey to her latest film "Hamnet," a poetic period drama that speculates on the life story of William Shakespeare himself, and is an early Academy Award frontrunner.

"It was so hard," she told AFP, of her school days.

Zhao's English teacher, Mr Robinson, would put

The hard work appears to have paid off.

Premiering Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, Zhao's "Hamnet" colors in the gaps of the little we know about William, his wife Agnes, their family and a tragedy that inspired arguably his greatest work.

It is based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell, which drew on evidence that the Shakespeares had a

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