The Vietnamese International Film Festival launches its second week-end with a day of free screenings held at UCLA tomorrow Thursday April 9.
Starting at 4pm will be a set of short films including the hard hitting Life Out of a Stone (in Vietnamese: Đội Đá Vá Đời) – a 19-minute documentary by Hồ Thanh Tuấn, on laborers who cut and carry stones using crude hand tools. Also included is the animated Cuội and the Banyan Tree (right) by Tạ Thanh Hải, telling a Vietnamese fantasy about the man in the moon.
At 7:30pm is When Autumn Sunlight Comes (in Vietnamese: Khi Nắng Thu Về), a feature from by Vietnam’s Bùi Trung Hải. The film won a Gold Remi at the WorldFest-Houston film festival in 2008.
The director is already in town and will be at the screening for Q&A.
Click here for a full schedule, with film synopsis.
Highlights for the next few days of ViFF:
* FRIDAY is Senior Citizens Day: Free for anyone 65+ but (obviously) open to all. Friday films are shown at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. The first set of shorts at 11am includes an in-depth look at the Cao Dai religion, by USC professor Susan Hoskins. The second set at 4pm focuses on the immigrant experience and includes a 7-minute documentary by Le Hai, on the fate of illegal Viet immigrants living in the UK who call themselves Người Rơm – meaning a scarecrow, something that can disappear in a flash at the flick of a lighter.
At 7:30pm on Friday is The Hot Kiss (in Vietnamese: Nụ Hôn Thần Chết), a slap-stick comedy and the highest-grossing Vietnamese movie to date.
* SATURDAY, ViFF returns to UC Irvine with two sets of shorts running parallel at 12 noon. At 3pm is a third set of shorts running parallel with a sneak preview (in full though) of director Leo Chiang‘s documentary A Village Called Versailles, a powerful story of the Vietnamese community in Louisiana uniting and standing up against the government’s plan to place a landfill right next to their neighborhood, post-Katrina.
The showing of A Village Called Versailles will be followed by a panel discussion on the rebuilding of the community after Katrina.
At 6pm will be a special spotlight on the action star Dustin Nguyen.
Starting with a wine reception hosted by Wells Fargo, the spotlight session will follow with a screening of the Australian film Little Fish (pictured right) where you will get to see Dustin topless and kissing Cate Blanchett.
* SUNDAY is the final day of ViFF. At 12 noon is The Moon at the Bottom of the Well (Vietnamese: Trăng Nơi Đáy Giếng) by Nguyen Vinh Sơn, a touching film raising the issue of women’s dignity in a male-dominated society. Running parallel with it is a set of shorts on the art scene in Vietnam, including Stephane Gauger‘s Vietnam Overtures – a 60-minute documentary on classical music in Saigon and Hanoi.
The closing film is All About Dad (pictured below) by newcomer Mark Tran. The film starts with the title character, seeing a tree bending to one side, struggle to make it grow straight the way he wants it. Is that a metaphor for the way many Viet parents raise their kids? What else!
