By Nivedita Balu and Kate Skelly

TORONTO (Reuters) -In director Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet,” the Oscar winner explores a new landscape of forests, greenery and dark clouds in 16th-century England to tell the story of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes overcoming the death of their 11-year-old son.

Zhao walked the red carpet ahead of the film’s Canadian premiere on Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival with stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, who play Agnes and Shakespeare.

“Essentially you’ve got two Irish people and a Chinese woman in charge of a story that is so quintessentially British. It’s exciting to me,” Mescal told Reuters.

Zhao, who has won several awards for her 2020 drama “Nomadland,” takes the audience on an emotional journey showing the Bard’s domestic life thr

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