Festival honours inspirational director
Blast from the past: A poster of the film Thien Menh Anh Hung (Blood Letter), directed by overseas Vietnamese director Victor Vu.
HA NOI (VNS)— Award-winning director Tran Anh Hung will receive the Inspiration Award for his contributions to Vietnamese cinema at theInspiration Award (ViFF) in April.
Born in 1962 in Viet Nam’s central city of Da Nang, Hung emigrated to France when he was 12. The director’s films – mainly varied meditations on life in Viet Nam – started a wave of cinematic efforts by overseas Vietnamese that have been widely acclaimed.
He received his first Oscar nomination for The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), which also won two top prizes at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Cyclo (1995), featuring Hong Kong movie star Tony Leung Chiu Wai, also got an Oscar nomination in addition to a top prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
Hung’s latest film Norwegian Wood, adapted from the acclaimed novel by Haruki Murakami, will be screened after the awards ceremony.
The eight-day ViFF will be held in the US cities of Irvine, Santa Ana and Los Angeles from April 4-7 and 11-14.
With the theme Flashback/Flashforward, the ViFF will review ten years of overseas Vietnamese cinema. About 69 films will take part in the festival, including 18 features and 51 short films produced in Viet Nam, Australia, Cambodia, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US.
Two films, Beyond the Mat and War Witch, will be screened at the opening and closing ceremonies. Directed by Kim Nguyen, War Witch was nominated for the best foreign language film at the 85th Academy Awards. — VNS