Director Bui Thac Chuyen’s Choi Voi (Adrift) is one of eight films remaining in competition for the $10,000 Dragons and Tigers Award for Asian movies at a Canadian film festival.

Duy Khoa in a scene from Choi Voi.

The rivals of Choi Voi at this award category are seven movies, namely Bakal Boys (the Philippines, director Ralston Jover), Cats (South Korea, director Kim Ji-Hyun), Eighteen (South Korea, director Jang Kun-Jae), Karaoke (Malaysia/Thailand, director Chris Chong), Kun 1: Action (China, director Wu Haohao), Left Out (Japan, director Sasaki Omoi) and Yellow Kid (Japan, director Mariko Tetsuya).

Thirty other films were scratched in the preliminary round.

Actor and singer Duy Khoa, who played a leading role in Choi Voi, is now in Vancouver. The film was screened on October 5-6 at Vancity cinema. Before the shows, Duy Khoa introduced the movie, Vietnam and landscapes in the film.

Duy Khoa (left), who played a naïve young husband (Hai) in Choi Voi, and Tony Rayns, the expert who chose and invited Choi Voi to the Vancouver Film Festival.

Tony Rayns, the expert who chose and invited Choi Voi to the Vancouver Film Festival, said that he highly appreciates the film and hopes that it will win the prize.

The Vancouver Film Festival continues until October 16, screening the huge total of 377 movies from throughout the world.

Actor Duy Khoa and Vietnamese-Canadian fans in Vancouver.

Before Vancouver, Choi Voi was presented the Venice, Toronto and Bangkok Film Festivals. In Venice, it won the prestigious Fipresci Prize awarded by the International Film Critics’ Federation (Fipresci).

The widely-acclaimed drama of sexual desire will open in Vietnamese theatres on November 13.

VietNamNet/VNE