Gay Short from Vietnam Screening at VIFF

Updated: Video on YouTube
A beautifully filmed 14-minute gay short is among this year's most entrancing films to screen at the Vietnamese International Film Festival this month in Orange County and the surrounding region, as Subversities resumes its blog after an hiatus.

Artistically directed by a youthful architect from Ho Chi Minh City, the film captures homophobic gossip in a small rural river-bound location just outside the metropolis the director resides, and its dark consequences for both a young boy and his gay uncle, who is an expert tailor  - the target of malicious gossip.

The director, Nguyễn Đình Anh, 25, above and below, showed his film in his U.S. premiere late last month at Outfest Fusion - the People of Color permutation of the Los Angeles-based queer film festival.   After the screening (with other shorts) at the ornate Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, the director was mobbed by appreciative fans (above), including film industry directors and actors. He was the star of the evening, grabbed by dozens at the post-film party just outside the theater, with many invites to meet up.

 

"Uncle & Son" (Hai Chú Cháu) - also known as "Uncle & Nephew" for the VIFF screening, is based on a short story of the same name by  Huu Thang. According to the director, he wanted to show what life is like for gay people in rural Vietnam.

In just a few minutes, his short, set amidst a lyrical portrayal of rural Vietnam, brings out starkly the homophobic small-village atmosphere a gay man is likely to encounter just miles from the thriving gay nightlife of Ho Chi Minh City.  Instead of seeing the faces of those making malicious comments as the boy travels by boat to school, the director has quite adroitly cut off their faces, so that only their voices are heard - creating an impression that everyone is against the boy's uncle.

Kudos to the kid, Tran Hoang Phi, who plays an innocent child - Hung - wondering if "marriage" would help his uncle.  And to the handsome young man Ngo Nhat Truong, who plays his uncle - Chu Ba Lua - who has to hide his young male lover's photo from the nephew and everyone else.

The director told the Outfest Fusion audience he was happy his film was premiering in Hollywood.   Dinh Anh told me he has dreams of pursuing a film career - and if he does - he will be an asset to any film studio that acquires his exquisite talent.  Amazingly, the film was just shot in two days.

"Uncle and Nephew" screens 1 pm Saturday, April 6, at Edwards University, across from UC Irvine,on Campus Drive in Irvine.  The film is shown with other shorts from Vietnam.  For more information on the screening, see:  Best of Yxine Film Festival.

-  D. Tsang.

VIFF Filmmakers' Panel Discussion: Expanding the Audience Base

To listen to the podcast of this program, click
on:

The 2011 Vietnamese International Film Festival ended its exciting two week run last night with a daring, sexually explicit film, "Bi, Don't Be Afraid" directed by Phan Dang Di. The film, set in a hot and steamy Hanoi summer won the festival's Grand Jury prize for Best Film. Viewers in the audience saw a version that was more sexually explicit than that released in Vietnam, with masturbation (female and male), frontal urination (by a male student) and various scenes of heterosexual intercourse.

For this evening's edition of Subversity, we can't bring you that film, but will instead offer audio of the 10 April 2011 Filmmakers' Panel Discussion on "Expanding the Audience Base" that took place at UC Irvine.

Panelists were: Anderson Le, director of programming at the Hawaii International Film Festival; Ann Le, with international division of Universal Pictures; Charlie Nguyen, director of The Rebel; Fool for Love; James Nguyen, director/writer, Birdemic: Shock and Terror; Jenni Trang Le, Assistant Director, Bi, Don't Be Afraid, and of Clash; Khoa Do, Director/Writer, Footy Legends, Mother Fish; Le Thanh Son, director/writer, Clash, and Nguyen Nu Nhu Khue, producer with HK Films in Vietnam.

The program airs this evening from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via http://kuci.org. Podcast to be posted later.

Filmmaker with Conscience Khoa Do; Hazards of Nail Salons

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Director Khoa Do embraced by a fan after his film screened at VIFF 2011. Photography &c Daniel C. Tsang 2011

He's a Viet Kieu filmmaker with conscience. Hailing from Australia, and emerging as one of the most exciting new filmmakers from the Vietnamese diaspora, Khoa Do presented "Mother Fish," his dramatic and creative take on the boat people's exodus to the West at the 5th Vietnamese International Film Festival ongoing at various venues in Southern California, including UC Irvine. As he discusses in the interview, he made this film to counter anti-refugee prejudice in Australia against a current wave of boat people from more current wars.

We talk with this award-winning director who charmed audiences at the last VIFF with his Footy Legends, about a multi-ethnic sports team, with a strong background in community service as a volunteer in a community-based organization in Sydney, where he made an earlier documentary, Finished People, about homeless people on the streets.

Khoa was named the 2011 VIFF Spotlight Award winner Saturday at a special event co-sponsored by Vietnamese American Community Ambassadors and the UCI Libraries Southeast Asian Archive prior to that evening's showing of Mother Fish.



The festival continues at UCLA, Bowers Museum (free to high school students) and UC Irvine. Among the films is "Touch," directed by Minh Duc Nguyen, a feature film about romantic liaisons among Vietnamese nail salon workers and their clients. It screens Saturday, 16 April 2011 at 7:30 p.m. HIB (Humanities Instructional Building) 100 on the UCI Campus.

For the second half of Subversity, we air Making Contact's report on the Toxic Truth about Nail Salons. It focuses on the health effects of prolonged chemical exposure on the salon workers and the move toward "greener" salons.

Also showing at VIFF is director Nguyen-Vo Nhiem Minh's second Vietnam production, Don't Look Back, a ghost story that is a takeoff on the Orpheus myth. Nguyen-Vo, who was last on Subversity discussing his "Buffalo Boy", is a scientist turned Vietnam filmmaker. Don't Look Back screens the same day, Saturday 16 April 2011 at 4 pm at HG (Humanities Gateway) 1070 on the UCI campus.

Subversity airs this evening from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.