Short films displayed at Himiko Cafe

Himiko Visual Café will host a week of short films called “The beginning frames” by young director Tran Ly Tri Tan from February 17 to 25. There will be a party on opening night starting at 6pm at Himiko Café, 324Bis Dien Bien Phu Street, District 10, HCMC. Four short films and a trailer will be shown in the following week from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. All will have English subtitles.

Tran Ly Tri Tan born 1982, a 2009 graduate of HCMC University of Theater & Cinema, made the short films about people that inspire him.

“I’m obsessed with many things in this life: a handicapped prostitute, a barber working in a hospital, a boy with a dream about magic, a bald visual artist… Those obsessions demand expression and I retell the stories in the film frames. I call them the beginning frames.”

The movies have all been made since 2008.  “Cut” (Cat) – the film about a life of a barber - was screened at the San Diego Asian Film Festival (US) and “The boy who saw fire” (Dua be nhin thay lua) – a documentary about the visual artist Nguyen Kim Hoang – appeared at the International Film Schools Festival (France) in 2009.

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Singapore art show in HCMC seeks college applicants

The LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore will hold an arts exhibition and open day at the HCMC University of Fine Arts gallery, 5 Phan Dang Luu Street in HCMC’s Binh Thanh District.

The exhibition will feature works by 17 Vietnamese and Singaporean students studying in the college. Works include five graphic designs, two interior designs, nine paintings, six fashion works, three animations and four short films. There will be information about the college and Vietnamese interested in studying there can enroll at the exhibition.

The college has a growing number of Vietnamese students enrolling in design and film courses. Two film study graduates, Boo Junfeng and Jennie Nguyen Vo Ngoc Diem, will be there to talk about their experience at Lasalle. Boo Junfeng directed a film called Sandcastle which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and has been selected to compete at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in Hanoi from October 17-21. Jennie Nguyen Vo Ngoc Diem, a lecturer at HCMC University of Theater and Cinema, directed one of the short films to be screened at the exhibition. “…We want more Vietnamese students to go abroad to add their vision to international arts education,” said Kim Dy-Liacco, director of marketing at the Lasalle.

Visitors can design a poster for one of the short films being screened at the exhibition, to be in the running for a prize trip to the LASALLE campus in Singapore, including return flights, food and accommodation for four nights, plus VND4 million spending money. All the entries will be uploaded on Facebook, with winners to be decided November 7.

LASALLE offers a comprehensive range of 26 diploma and degree awards in design, fine arts, film, media arts, fashion, dance, music, theatre, art history, art therapy and arts management in the region. As an accredited institution of The Open University, the United Kingdom’s largest university, the undergraduate and postgraduate programs offered by LASALLE are benchmarked against the best universities in the UK, making them internationally recognized.

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Hanoi’s first international film festival

A scene in the film Choi Voi by director Bui Thac Chuyen

The first ever Vietnamese International Film Festival will take place in Hanoi from October 17 to 21 to mark the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi, reports the Vietnam News Agency.

Le Ngoc Minh, the deputy head of Vietnam’s Cinematography Department under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, announced the festival on September 7 saying the festival would focus on Asian cinema.

Minh said the festival would promote cultural exchanges and cooperation between international and regional filmmakers by screening the latest films from across Southeast Asia.

Feature films, short films and documentary films produced in 2009 or 2010 that have not been screened abroad before or not been screened in Asia before October 21 can enter. Entries must have not been screened on TV or internet. There will be 10 feature films, 10 documentary films and 10 short films selected.

Films that don’t qualify for the festival will be screened on “World cinematography on Wednesday” or “Contemporary Vietnamese films”.

The judging panel will include five members for feature films, three for short, documentaries and cartoon films and three for the Network of the Promotion of Asian Cinema section. Among them are Vietnamese directors including feature film director Dang Nhat Minh, documentary film director Bui Dinh Hac and film critic Ngo Phuong Lan.

There will be a total of eight prizes awarded, including best feature film, best short film, best documentary, best director, best actor and actress and a prize of the Network of the Promotion of Asian Cinema, plus a media prize.

During the five-day event, there will be three seminars on Vietnam’s film industry. An exhibition of photos, an open air film screening and a meet and greet with actors and filmmakers will also be held.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the festival will be at the National Convention Center in Hanoi and will be broadcast live on VTV3.

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