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Workshop: Nine film makers take part in the 12-week practical training course in Da Nang. — VNS File Photos
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True story: A scene from the film Always Beside You by journalist Kim Hai. | |
HA NOI — Six documentary films by young Vietnamese film makers will be screened with English subtitles in Ha Noi this weekend.
The films are The Funeral Singer, by Truong Vu Quynh; House and Love Nest, by Ngo Thi Hanh Doan; The Youth of Today, by Hoang Tung; Mother Goes to the City, by Tran Cuc Phuong; Across the River, by Nguyen Minh Son; and Simple Happiness, by Nguyen Minh Ky.
The films were made by students attending this year's Varan Workshop in Da Nang, which was jointly organised by Ateliers Varan (an association of film-makers based in Paris), the studio for documentary and scientific films, the Ford Foundation and the Goethe Institute Viet Nam.
Initial workshops were held in Ha Noi and HCM City, during which members of Varan selected nine budding film-makers to take part in the 12-week practical training course in Da Nang last July.
Founded in 1981, Ateliers Varan has trained generations of documentary film-makers in places such as Viet Nam, Kenya, Serbia, Georgia and Afghanistan.
Varan acts as a consultant to UNESCO and sets up workshops abroad in collaboration with the Communication Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France.
Last year, the film Always Beside You by Nguyen Thi Kim Hai, that was made during the 2009 Veran workshop, won the documentary film category at the First Viet Nam International Film Festival.
The film traces the life of Phan Thanh Phuong, a seven-year-old boy who has been suffering from blood cancer since he was three. He is the only child of an elderly couple.
During four years of treatment at the Tumour Treatment Department at the National Children's Hospital, Phuong and his mother Dao spend extended periods of time in the hospital, living with syringes, chemotherapy and great physical pain.
Phuong's mother had to spend the family's entire savings and take out huge loans to pay the hospital fees. Despite treatment, the disease stubbornly refuses to go away.
The movie also introduces the viewer to life in a typical cramped and chaotic Vietnamese hospital.
Hai, 28, who works in the News and Current Affairs Department at Viet Nam Television, was successful product of last year's workshop. Always Beside You was Hai's debut documentary.
"Director Andre Va In encouraged me to follow my ideas and said I had to carefully study the characters I shoot," Hai said.
Hai visited the National Children's Hospital's Tumour Treatment Department. A doctor introduced her to a young blood cancer patient named Phan Thanh Phuong and his mother.
For more than one month at noon and in the evening after work, Hai would play and sleep with Phuong. One day, Hai brought a video camera with her to the hospital. "When they are natural with the camera and ignore it I started to shoot," Hai said.
A total of 960 minutes of footage was shot. It was edited down to 71 minutes 15 seconds.
This year's films will be screened at the Goethe Institute on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street on Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 7.30pm. — VNS