Bolsavik.com

The photojournalist who won the Pulitzer for one of the most iconic pictures of our times is opening a photo exhibit at Nguoi Viet’s community room tomorrow Friday.

Nick Ut, whose photo of the crying naked girl fleeing napalm bombing was circulated around the world, and his friend Huynh Ngoc Dan will hold their joint exhibition on three days, from February 12 through 14, 11am to 6pm. The opening reception will be from 8pm to 9pm Friday.

Coincidentally, the two had planned this joint exhibit in Saigon in 2007. However, in the last minute, the local photography association, ticked off that they weren’t allowed more say in who’s invited to the opening, cancelled it. Many Vietnamese papers reported on the cancellation, for example here (in Vietnamese).

(more…)

The film that won the Audience Choice Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival, a documentary about former orphans airlifted out of Vietnam at the end of the war, is coming to a film festival near you.

After the success at ViFF and at several other festivals including the director’s home town of Dallas, the film “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” is coming to the San Diego Asian Film Festival. (Click here for tickets.) Director Tammy Nguyen Lee will be in attendance at the screening at 2:00 pm on Saturday October 24.

The director (pictured right) is a graduate of SMU’s Meadows School with a B.A. with honors in Cinema, and also a Bruin, having graduated from UCLA’s Producers Program with an MFA. She is also, get this, a former Miss Asian American Texas 1999-2000.

In a recent interview with the Bolsavik, Tammy Nguyen Lee says of audiences’ reactions, “People, many who weren’t even aware of this historic event, are inspired by the courage of the Babylift volunteers and moved by the struggle of the adoptees. No matter the age, no matter the race, this is a relatable story that has universal themes and is touching lives and hearts everywhere.”

(The interview will be published on Nguoi Viet. You just got a preview ahead of everyone else. Lucky you.)

(more…)

“Egret Dancing”

With this photo, My Phuong Nguyen of Burtonsville, Maryland won the Grand Prize in the 2009 Maryland Natural Resource Magazine Photo Contest.

The contest was run by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

The photo, entitled “Egret Dancing,” also won her the First Place in the Wild Plants and the Birds categories, says the DNR in a press release here.

In the press release, the department also reveals that more than 300 photographers submitted nearly 1,500 photos this year.

A painting by Vietnamese-American artist Nguyen Van Bay has been selected to be part of the California Contemporary Art Collection 2009-2010 Art Exhibit at the state Capitol in Sacramento, according to a press release from the office of State Senator Lou Correa.

The painting above, entitled “Light and Trust,” has been selected to represent Correa’s senate district, which covers Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Anaheim, and chunks of Westminster, Stanton, Buena Park, Fullerton.

Artist Nguyen Van Bay (pictured right) was born in Chau Doc, in the southwest part of Vietnam, in 1938. He was graduated from Vietnam’s premiere art school in Gia Dinh in 1961 and for several decades taught painting in Saigon. Back in the 1960s, Bay won a serious number of international awards.

(more…)

Every year for 7 years now, the Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) has been holding a Mid-Autumn Festival Painting Contest for kids.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, probably originally a harvest festival, has evolved in tradition to become the Vietnamese day for kids.

Since 2003, VAALA (web site here) has been holding the annual painting competition for kids. As a measure of how strong the tradition has been going: Some kids who participated in the first competition are now in college; and some babies born in the year of the first competition are now participating in it.

This year’s competition took place on Saturday October 3, with the award ceremony the day after.

Enjoy the photos of people enjoying themselves.

Photos from the day of the contest are by Nguoi Viet reporter Ngoc Lan, used with permission.

The floor is as good a space as any to create art.

.

.

.

We’re given fingers for a reason…

. (more…)

A pianist some consider the best Viet pianist of her generation is scheduled to perform at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Massachussetts this weekend.

Up-and-coming Quynh Nguyen (Nguyễn Thúy Quỳnh in Vietnamese spelling), currently based in New York City, is slated to perform the Piano Quintet in F Minor by Cesar Franck with the the Biava Quartet, at 8pm on June 27. See the Festival’s web site here.

Back in 2001 or 2002, the Bolsavik was talking with Dang Thai Son, the first Asian to ever win the Chopin International Piano Competition - and asked him about the next generation of Vietnamese piano performers.

And Dang Thai Son said, in his opinion, the next great Vietnamese hope for a world-class pianist is none other than Quynh Nguyen.

(more…)

A mega gathering of Viet creatives is taking place in New York City next weekend, hosted by thatsneaat, an Asian Art blog.

The one-day event, dubbed “Hay Qua!” - Vietnamese for, well, “That’s neat!” - brings together a wide array of talent, from music to fashion and food.

In the film area, guests include many filmmakers whose works have been shown at ViFF, including Doan Hoang, director of “Oh Saigon”; Ina Adele Ray, the director of “El Paso, Vietnam”; Kim Spurlock, director of “Buoi Chieu”; and Jared Rehberg, an associate producer of “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” who is himself one of the lifted babies featured in the award-winning documentary.

(more…)

The Register has this story about the protest against the Brian Doan photo exhibit at Cypress College. It has a video too, which the Bolsavik has embedded at the end of this entry. Watch to through and check out the videographer’s first name. How apropos!

Excerpts from the Reg’s story by Michael Mello:

(more…)

A huge crowd of dozens and dozens of people showed up at Cypress College yesterday to protest against what they consider communist propaganda: The photography exhibit by Brian Doan, an Associate Prof at Long Beach City College.

This follows a four-person protest of last week and numerous and mostly unsuccessful attempts by Lactan Nuygen, the president of a non-profit corporation called the Vietnamese Community of Souther (sic) California to garner support from other community groups.

No takers so far. Apparently unwilling to take on a non-Vietnamese-American entity, none of the usual protest groups showed up. Not the Coalition Against Resolution No. 36 (Vietnamese: Liên Ủy Ban Chống Nghị Quyết 36, named after a document of the Communist Party of Vietnam) - the organizer of the protests against Viet Weekly. Not the Yellow Flag Youth (Vietnamese: Thanh Niên Cờ Vàng) - the organizer of the protests against VAALA for this same photograph by Brian Doan. None of the Viet elected officials showed up either, not even Assemblyman Van Thai Tran, who has filed a statement of intent to run for the 35th state senate district, which includes Cypress College.

(more…)

Jiffy Lube-quick summary: A second protest against Cypress College has been called for tomorrow Wednesday.

Slightly longer version:

On Monday last week, Lac Tan Nuygen’s group came to see the college president to hand in his organization’s protest letter. The president was out of town. But Nuygen did get an appointment to speak to the Dean of the School of Arts, the Department Head of Photography, the Director of the gallery holding the exhibit, and Brian Doan.

So, on Tuesday, they met for a couple of hours. There’s an audio here posted by Do Thuan, one of the participants (the Bolsavik hasn’t been able to listen to it because he’s missing a plugin), and a report on Nguoi Viet here (in Vietnamese). The bottom line can be summarized by something Nuygen said, is: “We’re not interested in your arguments about freedom of expression because we’ve heard them several times already, we just want you to take down the photo.”

(more…)