HERE OR THERE ? (2011)
Director : Siu Pham
Cast : Jean-Luc Mello, Tu Mai Dang, Vinh Son Nguyen
Script-editor : Jean-Luc Mello
Producer : Vinh Son Nguyen
Director of photography: Cong Danh Phan
Music-editor: Jamasp Jhabvala
Editor : Julie Beziau
Runtime : 91 min. Color, 2011
For a film on cultural dislocation and "being" as a relative concept, Here or There? is all over the place conceptually. The narrative just extends over one day. A Frenchman (Mello) wakes up in his house. Concurrently, he is riding around town in a motorbike, fishing and adrift in the sea. Interspersing these scenes are voice-over dialogues between the Frenchman and his Vietnamese wife about the disruptive construction of a shrine for "forsaken spirits" next door. The wife's fruitless search for him around town, his unnoticed presence
around her and visitations by her dead relatives prompt one to infer he is dead. Living abroad and being married to a local wife makes the protagonist an outsider and insider at the same time.
SHORT FILMS
THE FADING LIGHT (2008)
Director : Thien Do
Producer : Henri Phimasset, Thien Do
Starring : Trung Dung, Minh Duc
Length : 22:43 min. Color.
Genre : Drama
A man comes back to his village after staying abroad. He searches for the fading lights on every corner of his memory. But one light he will never forget as he always remembers that they were two who begun the first journey of their life.
SUNDAY MENU (2011)
Director : Liesl Nguyen
Producer : HFF Konrad Wolf
Starring : Hong Berghof, Nguyen Thi, Quyet Thang, Dam Ngoc Van, Huy Van Martin Nguyen, Nathan Koestlin,Phan-Thi
Length : 24:32 min. Color.
The short film Sunday Menu is about a teenage, Vietnamese-German girl confronting generational and cross-cultural conflicts through the ritualistic power of food in the suburbs of Berlin, Germany.
“Mi” shares her emotional world with her homesick and bedridden Grandmother “Ba”, Mi’s mother “Ma” who struggles with her unsuccessful restaurant, and upbeat cousin “Thai,” who seems to successfully straddle the German and Vietnamese cultures.
When Ba expresses dismay at the food Mi brings her from the restaurant, Mi resolves to learn how to cook one of her grandmother’s favorite meals – and what begins as the means to an end becomes the first step of an inner odyssey…
Sunday Menu is loosely inspired by the eponymous short story Thuc Don Chu Nhat [English: Sunday Menu] by Vietnamese writer Pham Thi Hoai, who lives in Berlin.
SNAKEHEAD FISH (2011)
Director : Do Quoc Trung
Producer : Doan Minh Anh , Ngo Dai Trang
Starring : Nguyen Nhu Quynh, Tran Dinh Cuong, Nguyen Oanh Oanh
Length : 15:34 min. Color.
Genre : Drama
The story is about a middle age woman who by all means finds a girl to sleep with her mentally challenged son. She insistently believes that her son is completely normal. And she expects a grandson to maintain the family line.
The arrangement is usually beyond human planning. That’s the disheartening message from Snakehead Fish. The well-arranged frames along with professional performances by the actors bring a bewildering atmosphere in the setting of an Hanoi ancient house.
THE MAN WHO WAS THERE (2009)
Director : Andy Nguyen
Producer : Andy Nguyen
Starring : Anphong Nguyen, Natalie Kuhn
Length : 11:58 min. Color.
Genre : Drama
It’s Christmas Eve in New York, a man who lives alone leaves his flat for the first time in 8 years because of a silly reason and fortunately a girl helps him. Both of them walk together in the freezing Christmas Eve. The loneliness has been spreading from the empty streets .
Andy Nguyen’s film not only brings a melancholy feeling about people’s inner loneliness in modern society but also lights up a belief in love as well.
MOTHER,S MILK (2011)
Director : Andy DeJohn
Producer : Vu Quynh Ha , Phan Xine
Starring : Nguyen Ngoc Trang Vy, Nguyen Hoang Thien Kim, Hoang Tran Minh Duc
Length : 17:44 min
Genre : Drama
In the southern highland of the middle region, the living area of a young single-mother with two small daughters spreads between corn fields and a vú sữa (translated literally as breast milk fruit but known in English as star apple) tree behind the house. The two daughters must one day face life-changing events, only the tree continues to give fruits.
Andy DeJohn has chosen a Vietnamese story with Vietnamese images for his graduation film from USC Film School. Perhaps what touched him personally is best communicated than ever through his simple and gentle story-telling.
PROGRAMME :
El Matadero (Intermediae)
27 june / Wednesday
19.30 HERE OR THERE? (Siu Pham, Jean Luc Mello)
28 june / Thursday
Short Films
(In collaboration with Yxine Film Fest)
With the presence of the Ambassador of Vietnam
19.30
SNAKEHEAD FISH (Do Quoc Trung) 2011
THE MAN WHO WAS THERE (Andy Nguyen) 2009
MOTHER,S MILK (Andy DeJohn) 2011
SUNDAY MENU (Liesl Nguyen) 2011
FADING LIGHT (Thien Do) 2008
