Discoveries from Vietnam World Cinema

In this existential vignette on urban migration, a mother watches her son’s funeral through a phone while a gravedigger and paid mourner discuss moving to the city.

When the owner of a coconut-making business suddenly passes away, his young heiress Sáu Mân takes over estate and marries its chief craftsman to oblige her father’s will. Once a young, unburdened schoolgirl, Sáu Mân now carries the fate of the workers and the business in her estate, while still having to shoulder the childrearing duties.

Paris is home to one of the largest and oldest Vietnamese communities in the world; however, little has been documented about the Vietnamese diaspora in Paris. Hieu Gray aims to change that in her new documentary “Quận 13” which refers to the Vietnamese name for Paris’ 13th arrondissment or district, home to the city’s Asian Quarter. Food is an essential part of life for both Vietnamese and French culture. Vietnamese people often greet one another with the phrase “Have you eaten?’’ in lieu of “How are you?” It is thru food that Hieu Gray tells their stories. The dining room table serves as a stepping stone into a greater glimpse of their lives and what it means to be “Viet Kieu” or Vietnamese living outside of Vietnam.

In the quiet plains of Long An, southern Vietnam, an online customer service worker in her late twenties wrestles with her mother’s debt and abandonment, as the dreams of urbanization rise around her, threatening to drown the fading landscape of memory.

Untold stories of women fighting in Vietnam. Examines intergenerational trauma, hope, validating female resilience. Through reconciliation narratives, redefines love as humanity's aim: healing and acceptance.

Documentary highlighting Vietnam’s increased agricultural, industrial and cultural prosperity following the demise of French colonial rule and the establishment of socialism.

In a living room full of buzzing noise from the fish tank's water pump and the weight of tropical humidity, a couple vents their frustration at each other.

A rusting dream, a mermaid, with a 9-spike crown.

A reflective and informational look at the construction of Hòa Bình Hydropower Plant throughout over a decade, interwoven with portraits of workers who devoted themselves to this pivotal transformation of the nation.

On a damped winter morning, Chi and her family gather to mourn the loss of her beloved elder sister, who valiantly battled breast cancer for nearly 15 years. The somber funeral becomes a poignant journey for Chi as she is transported back in time through the power of little objects and familiar places, each triggering a cascade of memories tied to her sister. As Chi revisits their past conversations, a profound shift occurs within her. The questions surrounding the purpose of life, which she had always held onto with unwavering certainty, begin to unravel. In this bittersweet exploration, the bond between the two sisters deepens beyond the constraints of mortality. As Chi delves into the depths of their shared experiences, she begins to embrace a new understanding of existence, one that defies conventional boundaries and provides a sense of solace in the face of loss.

A widow resists sensual dreams with a strange man because she believes that this is the cause of the bad luck that happened to her son.

The film tells the story of Páo, a Hmông man who married at 14. At the age of 18, he falls in love for the first time, forcing him to choose between love and family responsibilities.

Using ‘exquisite corpse’, a method by which each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, the filmmaker began her journey over the Vietnam War’s notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail. This interconnected system of jungle roads connecting the North with the South was instrumental for the eventual victory of the Vietnamese communists from the North over the American-backed Southern regime in 1975. Tens of thousands of people died along this trail during the war as it was heavily bombed by the American army. Along these roads, the filmmaker asked local villagers to contribute their tales while the camera was observing their present-day life, merging past with present, reality with fiction, in her effort to assemble a piece of collective history, a history told by the people from the bottom up.

Two students, both with university degrees, the boy from the polytechnic, the girl in pharmacy, are both out of work and survive on an assortment of odd jobs. While they were studying, they were protected but today they are confronted with the brutal reality of the job market and the harshness of urban life. But their wish is to stay in town and to build themselves a future. What happens when you’ve got a degree but you can’t find a job opening?

A divorced mother lives with her 7-year-old son. One day, the boy cries and wants to go back to his father. While trying to find a way to keep her son, the mother suddenly realizes that he is not her son.

The film tells the story of the journey to find the most special fish body that Mr. Nhut - the owner of the fishing boat of 3 low-class fishermen who are always oppressed - has always wanted to find. And then he finally found it, the last fish body...

On New Year's Eve, in a deserted boarding house, a female student living far from home sneaked into another boarding house to explore, but accidentally witnessed a dangerous thief murdering her neighbor.

A documentary about the majestic and emotional journey of Coach #ParkHangSeo and the #U23Vietnam team at the 2018 Asian U23 Championship, produced by Korean National Television.

The two brothers saved the divine turtle and were helped by the divine turtle. With their intelligence and ingenuity, they learned how to build a stilt house to protect themselves.

The story of a flock of little birds leaving their nests for the first time to freely explore life.

A short film, produced exclusively to help Scar of Life spread the message of “Give Luck, Gain Love”, to give the second chance in life to disadvantaged children with congenital heart defects.

How does a person become who they want to be in the future?

A boy’s perspective on New Year’s Day.

The movie "Peach blossom" "borrows" the pink color of the peach blossom to talk about the colors of life. Pink has no place in the soul of humans living in the modern urban, who desire the material enjoyment. They are Thu, an astute young woman with wild passion; Quy, a student who has burning desire to reach the Western civilization; or Thanh a romantic but spineless archaeological researcher... The profound meaning of the movie is wrapped up in its last scene - inside the towering apartment buildings, the peach blossom still remains its gorgeous pink despite such unprecedented storm and painful tragedy in a rustic family.

When the boss of the Chợ Mới syndicate suddenly dies, internal conflict erupts as members vie for power. After the patriarch announces the identity of the future successor, Tam Thái Tử travels to Thailand in search of this person, only to uncover a truth that could shake the entire syndicate to its core.

“My Paradise” shows an intermediate world, a model world with real people. A model Dong's father created as an idea of an Asian paradise serves as the stage for the video. From conversations with her father, she learned about what he pictures in this paradise for himself and her mother; stories based on everyday life and Asian soap opera. The main characters in this video are Dong's parents. Five stories depict everyday life in paradise: Flowers are watered, chickens are fed, people are strolling and riding on flying horses. Dialogue is completely absent from the videos: only five pieces of music accompany the clips. Guitarist and composer Nicholas Erismann wrote new compositions for all five videos in the style of Vietnamese songs. Quynh Dong creates hyper-real video works to provide an innate platform upon which she deliberately challenges cultural stereotypes.

Khoa has two lives. Paralyzed since she was born, she is both a bread saleswoman and a champion of relay races in a wheelchair. Her name, 'Khoa', means victory.

The very first sport/biography documentary feature length film in Vietnam about Goalkeeper Tan Truong, the player has the most scandals and doubts about "dirty matches" in Vietnam football history. A match-fixing cheater or just a bad luck guy? A disappointed dude and a loser in the team? He made stupid mistakes unbelievably. But he also had incredible saves unexpectedly. His career and his life has got full of challenges, ups and downs.

The evolution and transformation of Vietnam seen through the life of the building where the director was born and that of its inhabitants.

The construction of a dam has forced the resettlement of a village located in Vietnam’s central highlands and inhabited by the Katu ethnic minority. Today the land of their ancestors has been submerged by the waters of an artificial lake. Characters from three generations embody the fate of this community.

A young disabled man becomes passionate about soccer and inspires his friends with his courage and strong will. His mother reveals the causes of his handicap. The history of the war resurfaces.

In Half Moon, Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” is paired with footage of the artist’s Vietnamese father walking in an Asian restaurant, the music transforming his nervous march into a hip catwalk stride. Meanwhile, sluggish, eerie electronic beats often accompany angled shots of apartment interiors, accentuating a certain ghostly nature of such spaces. Music haunts, yet this state of being haunted has nothing to do with horror; it is more hypnagogic and ethereal. Amidst the hauntingly disorienting music, the sense of space is as distracting as the temporal experience.

Newly hatched chick thinks a balloon is its mother

Two boys learn that they are both dating the same girl. At first they hate each other, but then they decide to get together and take revenge. In the process they fall in love with each other instead.

Set in a factory in Asia during an undefined celebration event, Europeans in suits are seen in long wandering shots as they greet one another, shake hands discreetly, and look about themselves expectantly. Further into this ambiguous opening, and propelled by classical Western opera and symphonic orchestrations, Asian workers are observed putting finishing touches of paint and polish onto gleaming surfaces of what will soon be on display in motorbike showrooms. The images and music are sharply punctuated by the abrupt and raw intrusions of live factory sounds that conclude in a jarring visual exclamation, exhuming the verses of an Emily Dickinson poem and laying them out in a contemporary and globalized context.

"The important things in life you cannot see with your eyes, only with your heart" - Antonie de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince

A girl by chance sees in the middle of the night a swarm of ants bringing a sugar cube back to their nest. That happenstance is imprinted in her mind and leads her through a labyrinth of emotions

The photographer makes portraits. The photographer leaves the studio and the subject alone with the camera for some minutes. The photographer returns. The gentle shifts in awareness of the presence and absence of the photographer raise questions relating to the morality and the veracity of making images of people who both know they are being observed and are then unaware. Which is the true record? Is the photographer necessary - or even an impediment - to the act of photography?

With Director Phạm Nguyễn Anh Tú taking on the central role of a gay superhero who uses his first-ever queer memory in different forms to ponder the power of memory, Soapy Faggy analyses stereotypes of the LGBTQ community as displayed in Vietnamese media.

Jrai mythologies are woven into a lyrical meditation of life and death, destruction and creation, and everything in-between.

The life and work of Vietnamese singer-songwriter Tran Tien through his genuine exchanges with the film crew combined with old performance footages.

Rabbit and Hedgehog go looking for food.

The Jade Emperor and his divine council try to figure out what is causing problems on Earth

A series of moving images taken from observing dreams, subconsciousness, thoughts, emotions and personal memories.