Since 2006, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) has been celebrating women’s voices in cinema with its annual EDA Awards — and this year, Chloé Zhao’s haunting adaptation of Hamnet emerged as one of the season’s defining works.
Zhao’s Hamnet scored 10 nominations — including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay — a testament to how her delicate yet ambitious storytelling continues to captivate critics and audience alike.
Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s celebrated novel, the film features Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, reuniting the The Lost Daughter co-stars under Zhao’s meditative lens.
With sweeping cinematography by Łukasz Żal (Ida, Cold War) and sensitive editing by Zhao and Affonso Gonçalves, Hamnet solidifies Zhao’s place among the most accomplished filmmakers balancing emotional intimacy with visual grandeur.
In total, the 2025 EDA Awards’ leading contender was Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another with 12 nominations, followed closely by Zhao’s Hamnet, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value.
Read more: Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’ Wins Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award
Yet across the global slate, Zhao’s presence looms large. She is competing not only for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay in the open categories, but also takes center stage in the Female Focus Awards for Best Female Director and Best Female Writer — alongside collaborators like Maggie O’Farrell.
“We are proud that this year’s member-determined roster of nominees includes female contenders in non-gender specific categories, including the invincible Chloé Zhao in the Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories,” said Jennifer Merin, President of the 88-member AWFJ.
“We say hooray, and we are excited to honor these and other women filmmakers who are making their way in our still male-dominated film industry.”
The film’s nomination for Best Ensemble Cast & Casting Director (Nina Gold & Lucy Amos) further reflects its intricate world-building — a production equally attuned to poetic atmosphere and human frailty.
Zhao’s restrained approach to historical narrative continues to redefine what prestige period dramas can look like, merging timeless themes of love, loss, and legacy with the visual lyricism that defined her earlier work in Nomadland and The Rider.
As the awards season unfolds, Hamnet’s multi-category showing underlines AWFJ’s mission: to center women where critical recognition often has not.
The EDA Awards — named both for AWFJ founder Jennifer Merin’s mother, actress Eda Reiss Merin, and for “Excellent Dynamic Activism” — remind the industry that honoring women behind the camera is not corrective history, but essential storytelling.
