During a conversation at London Film Festival on Sunday, Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao got candid about Hollywood, the difficulty of financing films, how neurodivergence has impacted her storytelling and more.

Zhao’s devastating historical drama “ Hamnet ” — about the personal tragedy that led to the creation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley — held its European premiere at the festival on Saturday night, where it was welcomed with plenty of emotion (and a surprise appearance from producer Steven Spielberg ). Speaking about making the film, Zhao said that the experience made her “very passionate about rediscovering and remembering some older ways of storytelling that have been forgotten in our society.”

“Before we made everything factual

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