LookAtVietnam – A new documentary by award-winning, Viet Nam-based British filmmaker and educator Paul Zetter will premiere in Ha Noi on September 10.

Shutterbug: Nguyen Thi Huong (right) and her teammate discuss how to use a digital camera to take photos in their communities. — Photo courtesy German Development Service

Over the course of five months, 16 adults living with disabilities from urban and rural areas in Thanh Hoa shared eight digital cameras and took over 8,000 photographs in their communities. During this time, workshops were held in which participants discussed and shared their pictures with each other, developing their visual literacy, communication and photographic skills.

The documentary depicts how the digital camera Huong uses on the project begins to open her eyes to her neighbours’ and friends’ lives, as well as her own, and it becomes a statement not just about the photography project but about poverty and being a young woman in rural Viet Nam.

Presented and funded by the German Development Service (DED), with financial support from the W.P. Schmitz Foundation of Dusseldorf, Germany, the film has also been selected to screen at the 2009 Leap International Developmental Film Festival in Manila this month.

It is Zetter’s third documentary shot in Viet Nam. The others were about the country’s first deaf contemporary dance company and about an art installation at the Hue city Festival, and both have been screened in various film festivals around the world and on VTV.

Still Life Moving

will be screened at 7pm next Thursday at the Ha Noi Cinematheque, 22A Hai Ba Trung street.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News