LookAtVietnam – Ha Noi Cinematheque is hosting a special Viet Nam on Film summer festival featuring the best of the country’s movies and foreign films on Viet Nam.

Powerful portrayal: Actress Tra Giang in a scene from 17th Parallel Days & Nights. She won a best actress award for her role in the film at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1973.

One of the most classic Vietnamese movies to be shown is 17th Parallel Days & Nights directed by Nguyen Hai Ninh in 1972. Vietnamese actor Tra Giang won a best actress award for her role in the film at the Moscow Film Festival in 1973.

When the Tenth Month Comes,

voted by CNN as one of the top 18 Asian films, by director Dang Nhat Minh will also be featured at the festival. A haunting portrait of one woman’s struggle with loss and personal sacrifice during the war, the movie is considered by many local and international critics to be the greatest Vietnamese movie ever made.

Golden Lotus

The film won the Golden Lotus at the 7th Viet Nam Film Festival in 1985; Special Prize at the Asia Pacific International Film Festival in 1989; encouragement certificate at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1985 and Special Prize of Judge at the Hawaii International Film Festival in 1985.

Another film by Minh, Nostalgia for the Countryside, which explores the tensions and traumas of everyday life in a rural northern Vietnamese village, will also be shown. Two more award-winning movies by directors Pham Nhue Giang and Bui Thac Chuyen were selected for the festival.

Giang’s The Deserted Valley took top prizes at the Viet Nam Film Festival in 2002 and was selected to open the International Forum of New Cinema at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival.

Shot entirely on location in an ethnic Mong village high in the Hoang Lien Son mountains, the movie is an emotional tale of two school teachers from Ha Noi who struggle to find meaning in their private and professional lives.

Living in Fear

by Chuyen is one of 16 feature films produced in 2006 that won much critical acclaim. The film won that year’s Golden Kite Awards in all the major categories. It also won the Best Film Award in the Asian New Talent category at the 2006 Shanghai Film Festival.

One of the most acclaimed Vietnamese films of the 1980s, The Travelling Circus, was made by female director Viet Linh.

It won numerous international awards including the Grand Prix at Fribourg Third World Film Festival; the Audience Award at Uppsala International Film Festival in Sweden; and First Prize at the Madrid Women’s Film Festival.

With obvious influences from Bergman, DeSica and Fellini, Viet Linh’s movie tells the bittersweet story of a small travelling circus from Ha Noi stopping in an impoverished ethnic village in Viet Nam’s central highlands.

Through the eyes of a village youth, viewers witness the magic of the circus, and the naive hope that illusion can be transformed into reality.

Two French movies shot in Viet Nam Indochine and The Lover will please movie buffs.

Revolutionary story

Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992, Indochine is an intimate epic-a tale of passion and revolution in colonial Viet Nam.

The first six weeks of filming were done in Viet Nam, including the opening funeral procession near Ha Noi, the slave market/bridge scenes at Ha Long Bay, and the Vietnamese marriage ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Hue city. Famous French actress Catherine Deneuve starred in the movie.

The Lover

was the first foreign film shot on location in Viet Nam after 1975. It is based on the autobiographical novel by French author Marguerite Duras, whose youthful real-life romance with a Chinese man in 1920s Sai Gon caused a major scandal.

Narrated by Jeanne Moreau, The Lover was nominated for an Oscar in 1993 for Best Cinematography, and won a Cesar in France for Best Music Score.

The documentaries Hearts and Minds, Regret to Inform, Prisoners in the Ha Noi-Hilton, Public Enemy Number One and A Dream in Ha Noi will also be shown.

All films will be shown in their original version, with English subtitles. The festival will run through July and August at 22A Hai Ba Trung street, Ha Noi.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News