U.S. film “Nomadland”, which earned six Oscar nominations on Monday, tells the story of a woman who becomes a nomad in the wake of the economic recession – spotlighting a way of life that has seen an explosion of interest in the time of coronavirus. The U.S. recession drama, which follows the story of an itinerant Amazon warehouse worker who lives in her oversize recreational vehicle (RV), received six nods, including best picture and best director for Chinese-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao.
Of the 11.2 million RV owners in the United States, about 1.5% are “full-timers” and more than half of those continue to work and live with their children, according to the RV Industry Association.
“When the pandemic hit, it brought home the fact that we truly don’t have a place to go,” said Rene Agredano, who decided with her husband to start living in a recreational vehicle in 2007, usually moving to a new spot every month.
When lockdown restrictions at the start of the pandemic forced RV parks and campgrounds to shut down, the couple had to move temporarily to a friend’s property.
“It was pretty terrifying to think: we don’t know anyone who wants us,” Agredano, 52, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from southern California.
But since then, she said, people have started to see the benefits of the low-cost, mobile lifestyle.
“A lot of people were knocked down by the pandemic and have seen the movie and said, ‘Hey, why can’t we do that?'” said Agredano, a writer who also runs a…
