Porter Lynn as Tam, in "Touch"

The Orange County Film Fiesta, part of the Santa Ana two-weeks’ long festivities, will be hosting a Vietnamese Cinema Night this Saturday, preceded by a wine reception at VAALA Center also in Santa Ana.

The films shown are: “Touch” by Minh Duc Nguyen, a boy-meets-girl love story taking place in a nail salon; preceded by two shorts, “Fading Light” by Thien Do, and “Dandiggity: Corner Shop Poet,” by Viet Nam Nguyen.

The wine reception is at 4pm-5:30pm, VAALA, 1600 N. Broadway, Santa Ana.

The screening is at 6pm, the Yost Theatre, 307 N. Spurgeon, Santa Ana.

Both events are free.

Touch was shown at this year’s Vietnamese International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice Award for a feature film.

Both Fading Light (Vietnamese title “Theo Hướng Đèn Mà Đi“) and Dandiggity were also shown at ViFF, where Fading Light won the Audience Choice Award for a short film.

“I really look forward to showing my movie Touch to the Latino community in Santa Ana and getting their feedback,” Minh told the Bolsavik.

“In my opinions, there’s a lot of similarities between the Latino and Vietnamese-American communities,” he said, “and historically in America, we have always been neighbors. So I think it’s important, as well as fun, for our two communities to have cultural exchanges in some of the things that we are passionate about such as food, music, art, and movies.”

The story of “Touch” takes place at a salon named “VIP Nail.” Manicurist Tam (Porter Lynn) has a new customer: Brendan (John Ruby), a mechanic who literally has a problem on his hands. He can never get rid of the oil stains around his nails, and when he tries to be intimate with his aloof wife, she always rejects him with the same excuse: “Your hands are filthy!”

Desperately seeking to save his marriage, Brendan goes to the nail salon every day, where Tam also offers him advice on how to get his wife to love him again. But soon, Tam and Brendan find themselves drawn to each other, an attraction which becomes harder and harder to resist.

The 5th biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF, Vietfilmfest.com), entering its closing week-end today and tomorrow, announced the nominees for its Trống Đồng (Grand Jury) award in both the feature and short categories.

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Tremendously grown from its first edition with a few dozen shorts, ViFF this year features numerous top hits and highly acclaimed work, with personal attendance by filmmakers around the world. Among those showing up in person at their films’ screening are Khoa Do, the 2005 Young Australian of the Year, and Phan Dang Di, whose film Bi Don’t Be Afraid gathered accolades the world over and plenty of grunts from Vietnam’s old guards.

Trinh Hoi, who never got to see his own acting in 14 Days when the film was shown in Vietnamese theatres, because by then he was denied entry by the government there, also came to ViFF just so that he could see it on screen.

The nominees for Trống Đồng Grand Jury Award are, in alphabetical order of their English titles: Behind Death (Phía Sau Cái Chết) by Ta Nguyen Hiep, from Saigon; Fading Light (Theo Hướng Đèn Mà Đi) by The OC’s own Thien Do; My Apartment Block (Chung Cư Của Tôi) by Trinh Dinh Le Minh, from Saigon; and Sunday Menu, by Liesl Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American who now lives in Berlin.

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For the feature films, the nominees are: Antoine, a documentary by Lara Bari; Bi, Don’t Be Afraid! (Bi, Đừng Sợ!) by Phan Dang Di; Floating Lives (Cánh Đồng Bất Tận) by Nguyen Phan Quang Binh; and Saigon Electric (Sài Gòn Yo) by Stephane Gauger.

The winners will be announced on the closing night tomorrow Sunday April 17 at 6:30pm, at UCI room HIB 100. Following that is the screening of the closing film Bi, Don’t Be Afraid!. And following that screening, the winners of the Audience Choice awards will be announced.

For today, the feature films being shown, in addition to two sets of shorts, are Don’t Look Back and Touch. Between the two screenings is a wine reception.

Don’t Look Back (Khi Yêu Đừng Quay Đầu Lại) is by Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo, a scientist turned filmmaker who won multiple top awards with his first feature film Buffalo Boy (Mùa Len Trâu). Don’t Look Back is shown at 4pm today, at UCI, room HG 1080.

Touch is helmed by SoCal’s own Minh Duc Nguyen, a love story taking place in a nail salon. It is showing at 7:30pm today, at UCI, room HIB 100.

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.

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We’re given fingers for a reason…

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The day after the competition, VAALA held the award ceremony.

The jury, by the way, consists of Audrey Yamagata Noji, Santa Ana Unified School Board Member; Don Cribb, chairman of the Santa Ana Arts Council; and three Vietnamese-American painters: Lệ Chi; Nguyễn Ðình Thuần; and Nguyễn Việt Hùng.

Entertainment at the award ceremony included everything from mid-Autumn tunes played on traditional Vietnamese musical instruments; to a hip-hop number.

Every kid that showed up was given a lighted lantern, which they then used to follow the Lion Dance troupe around, in a Mid-Autumn tradition known in Vietnamese as “rước đèn.”

The following photos are by the Bolsavik.

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This is Kevin Phan, frequently seen on Thế Hệ Trẻ music videos. He does his homework while waiting for his turn to perform.

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And this shy but justly proud kid is Steven Phan, who won second place in the 5-to-7 age group.

These kids are from the Lac Hong traditional music group, probably the organization most dedicated to propagating traditional Vietnamese music in the United States.

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These kids actually all come from the same music school, the Spotlight School in Garden Grove.

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VAALA is, of course, the same organization that put together the biennual Vietnamese International Film Festival (web site here; see Bolsavik collected entries here) as well as the FOB II: Art Speaks exhibit (see Bolsavik collected entries here).

The Vietnamese International Film Festival, after an exhilerating 11-day run, wound down Sunday with another full day of screening, a closing film, an award ceremony, all topped by an exciting Closing Gala with deejay and live music.

ViFF’s choice for closing film was “All About Dad,” the feature-film directorial debut for Bay Area-based Mark Tran. The film is a new, funny and innovative treatment of the old issue of generational/cultural gap between the traditional parent and his children whom he loves and who love him, though in starkly conflicting ways.

The director and practically the entire cast came down from San Jose to attend the screening. The movie was wildly applauded by the audience. Even UCI’s projectionist came out of the control room to congratulate the filmmakers. Following ViFF, “All About Dad” will next screen at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (click here) on May 5.

The festival closed with an award ceremony and a gala. There were two sets of award, an Audience Choice award and an award called the “Trống Đồng” – the word means “bronze drum,” but the award name is untranslated lest it be taken as being lower than gold and silver. The bronze drum is often taken as a symbol of Vietnamese culture.

The “Trống Đồng,” awarded by ViFF’s screening committee and executive committe, went to the feature film “Footy Legends” by Aussie Viet Khoa Do (read more here and here); and to the short film “A Summer Rain” by Ela Thier (here) – statement on the universal experience of the immigrant seen through the heart and mind of an Israeli child who moved in next to a Vietnamese family.

The Audience Choice award for feature film went to the documentary “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” by Tammy Nguyen Lee. The film (read more here) traces back what happened to the 2500 Vietnamese children in orphanages airlifted by the U.S. in the final days of the Vietnam War. The director had attended the screening at ViFF together with the producer, many of the volunteers and adoptees who were featured in the film, as well as many adoptees who were not. Pictured at the right are the director (right), Sister Mary Nelle Gage, a former orphanage volunteer (left), and Lyly Koenig, an adoptee.

In the short category, the Audience Choice went to “Delivery Day” – also by Khoa Do – something many Viets in the US can relate with: The day Mom has to deliver clothes from her home-based sweat shop.

Shown earlier in the day was “The Moon at the Bottom of the Well” (in Vietnamese: Trăng Nơi Đáy Giếng), a profound film by Hue (Vietnam)-based director Nguyen Vinh Son about family and human relationship, based on a short story by Thuy Mai. The film’s protagonist is a woman who loves her husband so much, she got him a second wife so he could have children. The film won the second-place award at Vietnam’s national film festival in 2008. Hong Anh, who plays the main character, won the Best Actress award at the Dubai International Film Festival.

The director Nguyen Vinh Son (pictured right) was present at the ViFF screening and related how, at Dubai, men came to see the film with their several wives, making for a small irony. The film is making a tour of 12 U.S. universities. Its next screening is on April 20 at the Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley (here).

As the Bolsavik has mentioned in this space before, shown today at ViFF, before the Dustin Nguyen spotlight, is a special sneak preview of A Village Called Versailles.

Directed by Leo Chiang, the 75-minute documentary follows the rebuilding and transformation of the area named Versailles in East New Orleans, where almost all the residents are Vietnamese.

In particular, the film documents how the local Vietnamese community, led by Catholic priest Vien The Nguyen, successfully fought the city’s plan to locate a landfill right next to the community.

Screening is at 3pm, at UC Irvine, room HIB 100. Following the screening will be a panel discussion on the rebuilding of the community in Louisiana after Katrina.

Appearing on the panel will be Bishop Mai Thanh Lương, auxillary bishop of Orange County. Bishop Mai was the founder of the Versailles village.

Also among the people on the panel will be Derrick H. Nguyen, better known by his Vietnamese name Nguyễn Hoàng Dũng. As a member of the White House Initiative on Asian-Pacific Americans during the Bush administration, Nguyen was intimately involved with efforts to help reconstruction of the areas devastated by the hurricane.

Shown tonight will be Little Fish (pictured right) where Dustin will be in various states of undress and kissing Cate Blanchett.

The special session on Dustin Nguyen starts at 6pm with a reception hosted by Wells Fargo (you know, that bank whose profit report buoyed the stock market last week), followed by the screening.

Also shown today will be two sets of shorts running parallel at 12 noon and a third set at 3pm. All events today will be at UC Irvine, HIB 100.

In the third set of shorts is a special sneak preview 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.

Appearing on the panel, among others, will be Derrick H. Nguyen, better known by his Vietnamese name Nguyễn Hoàng Dũng. As a member of the White House Initiative on Asian-Pacific Americans during the Bush administration, Nguyen was intimately involved with efforts to help reconstruction of the areas devastated by the hurricane.

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!

Celebrity par excellence: Even the TV reporter/host wanted to take a souvenir picture with Dustin Nguyen.

To the right above is Thang Dinh Nguyen, the head of Boat People S.O.S. who will be on a ViFF panel discussion. In the middle is Pham Phu Minh, a shareholder of Nguoi Viet and the publisher/editor of Phu Nu Dien Dan and Chi Linh magazines.	Dustin Nguyen answering interviews from Saigon TV.

Answering questions from VHN-TV is Le-Van-Kiet, who directed the critically acclaimed Dust of Life. His second feature Sad Fish — starring Orchid Lam Quynh, plus what looks like a re-cast of Journey From the Fall: Kieu Chinh, Long Nguyen, Jayvee Hiep Mai – will World Premiere at ViFF on Saturday at 5pm.	Orchid Lam Quynh, who has a day job as a Math professor at Cypress College, emceed the opening ceremonies for ViFF.

Above is Khoa Do, the 2005 “Young Australian of the Year” and director of Footy Legends, which the Bolsavik thinks is probably the best film ever made by a Vietnamese director.

Some more pictures of Khoa Do. Here he is with a couple of fans.	And here he is in the middle, with Dustin Nguyen to the right, and, to the left, Tram Le, the Chair of VAALA’s Board of Directors,

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And here’s Khoa talking with, on the right, Kieu Chinh, the veteran Vietnamese actress known for a string of famous roles including as Suyuan in The Joy Luck Club. In the middle is Alan Vo Ford, an executive producer of Journey from the Fall.

These three people are, from left to right: Sukhee Kang, the mayor of Irvine; Dr. Vicki Ruiz, the Dean of Humanities at UC Irvine; and Ysa Le, VAALA executive director and a co-director of ViFF.

TV crews making themselves at home all over the lobby.