Discoveries from Vietnam World Cinema

On their last night together, Bảo and Quỳnh must find a way to end the whole mess that should have ended since they broke up long ago.

The woodcutter was given a gourd by the blue bird.

A film essay on the state of Vinh Long, the Southern and Vietnam.

A woman returns to the land she used to visit many times in the past, with a guy resembling her lover.

"Chapters of you" is a short film representing the lgbtq+ community in their early stage of self-discovery. The film is about a teenager discovering herself through the strange emotion she has for her girl best friend! As the story progresses, she faces an unprecendented truth about her identity that changes her way of thinking in the future.

A story about a kid wanting to be the god of heavens (so that he could skip classes and play around all day), Flying Dream’s witticism is equally applicable to situations in the world of adults. The second directorial work of Hữu Đức (who had by then appeared in a number of early Vietnamese animation project, often responsible for the art), Flying Dream marked ‘the maturity phase’ of Vietnamese animation in general and doll-based stop-motion works in particular. Flying Dream also bears the spirit of 1970s Eastern European animation through hazy spaces and colours floating freely between reality and a dream-world (created by artist Mai Long), and a score that recalls the best of psychedelic pop music of the time.

Two boys suddenly discover the "super huge" horn on their heads, determined to cooperate to become the master of the game.

The film is about a proud bird.

Little Bee learns a lesson about tardiness

Two trans women, best friends in the truest sense of the word. They were born in the same year, grew up together in the same city, have the same sexual orientation, chose to live their lives their own way and to see their highest dreams come true: to be women. They will risk anything, but no one knows what is going to happen.

Porcupine helps his friend Rabbit sew a shirt

Stop motion animation about a hunter and his dog

A platoon loses contact with their commanders and finds themselves stuck in the vast forests with no way out. Plagued by despair and the constant sightings of their fallen comrades, the soldiers begin to succumb to ill health and madness.

After Thi's mother died, her father was unable to raise her, so she lived with her aunt-in-law and grandmother. Thi's grandmother left her a ring when she died. While packing her things, Mrs. Mai discovered it and scolded Thi, causing her to run away from home.

Explores a subjective understanding of the artist’s homeland, Vietnam. Nguyen interrogates local, official histories and external viewpoints on Vietnam, together with the wider ideals of women and men, the role of the artist in society, and the landscape as metaphor. The 55-minute video proposes a homegrown authority that is derived from the artist’s own culture, expanding the concept of "Fourth Cinema," which was originally conceived by Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay in the 1990s. According to Barclay, “Fourth Cinema” is a cinema by, about, and for indigenous peoples defined in opposition to the framework of First (American), Second (Art House) and Third (Third World) Cinema.

With his parents busied by the toils of daily life during the subsidy days, little Minh's grandmother is closest to him in the family. Until one day...

In Vietnamese artist Thi Nguyen’s tranquil essay film, a letter exchange unveils the changing uses of space in various provinces and the different ways its inhabitants remember history.

The ghost stories of modern times, the ghosts lurking in the city, the scary mysteries in the human mind... through a cinematic, ghostly perspective.

In a tense battle of friendship and survival, three teenage friends face a devastating choice: kill their best friend—now a zombie—to protect the world, or risk unleashing a global outbreak by trying to save him.

A man lost in his own life.

In the midst of a life that seems to be in our hands, The Puppet reveals the truth about the invisible strings that govern every human decision. This is a journey in search of free will.

A girl accidentally wakes up next to a piano - A man suddenly appears and takes possession of the piano - A chase between the man and the girl. What is really going on?

A story of a water puppet performer.

Covering the two first "Viet Pride" celebrations, and following its different actors, the documentary shows the milestones of the fast-growing LGBT community in Vietnam. With portraits of the different generations and genders involved in building a strong and proud community, it gives the audience an idea of the conflicts and the stigma that LGBT face but also a sense of the types of changes they are going through in Vietnam. Vietnam is at a turning point regarding its policies towards homosexuality. In a society that is evolving at a very fast pace but still deeply anchored in family traditions, how does it feel to come out? By means of the life stories of gays, lesbians and transgender people in Hanoi, the documentary gives an overview of why Vietnam might well become the first country in Asia to allow same-sex marriage.

Amidst urbanisation, the lives and fates of various individuals converge inside a dingy washroom where dirty dishes, food waste and personal items lay scattered.

Red Bean and Green Bean sustain life by stealing food from the past. The time machine is also a portal for Seahorse – the only surviving girl in the future, to travel back to the present with the Beans family to search for help. A horrible truth is revealed. The 3 girls face a life-or-death decision. Past debt has to be paid in the present, otherwise humankind will become extinct in the future.

A government minister from Hanoi has a car accident on the way to a wedding in a remote village. The county hospital does not have the authority to operate on a minister. The county commissioner would like the operation done in the county for the prestige it would bring, but will not authorize it without the approval of the whole county committee. The hospital director has filled his quota, so does not want to take the risk of an operation. Since a telephone call to Hanoi has to be booked two days in advance, the minister's wife cannot be contacted, nor can a helicopter be arranged to move the minister to Hanoi.

Thế Giới" is a short documentary film channeling the maximalist raw energy of two queer collectives — Gái Nhảy & Bung Lon. Accelerating club culture in Sài Gòn, Vietnam.

The title "Lingua Automata" is a rough Latin translation of "language of the automata" or "the tongue of the machine". "Automata" denotes machinic devices able to act of their own will, self-propelled yet still obeying a predetermined concatenation of courses. If "Machinima", the portmanteau of "machine" and "cinema", is used to describe a strand of virtual puppetry performed by humans, then "lingua automata" could be the vernacular through which only machine-to-machine, automaton-to-automaton communication is conducted in a closed loop. This film is composed of images made entirely within the Roblox game engine.

“My ultimate wish is that our whole party and people, united in struggle, build a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, and prosperous Vietnam... and make a worthy contribution to the world revolution.” - Ho Chi Minh

Across the Forest is an experimental meditation on landscape, memory, and perception, where the world unfolds as a shifting constellation of images rather than a fixed reality. Drawing on the Central Highlands of Vietnam, Truong Cong Tung constructs a layered visual and auditory experience in which people, objects, and natural elements appear as fragments both intimately and suggestively.

While the boys are fighting for the attention of Ngân, the only one girl in the group, she seems to have her own plan.

When her parents struggle to make ends meet in Saigon, a young woman quits school to work as a nightclub dancer and is later banished from home for losing her virginity. Slowly, she descends into hedonism and self-destruction.