HYDERABAD FILM CLUB
JANUARY 2018 PROGRAMME
VIETNAMESE FILM FESTIVAL
At Sri Sarathi Studios Preview Theatre, Ameerpet
20-01-2018 6.00 p.m. 1. A PASSERINE BIRD
Saturday
- MISSING THE COUNTRYSIDE
21-01-2018 5.30 p.m. 1. WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES
Sunday
- HANOI-WINTER 1946
22-01-2018 6.00 p.m. 1. THE DESERTED FIELD
Monday
- THE RETURN
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A PASSERINE BIRD
(Vietnam/1962/B&W/42 mins.)
Directors: Van Thong Nguyen, Vu Tran
Writer: Van Thong Nguyen
Stars: Lan Ngoc, Uyen To, Buu Tu
Little Nga and her father earn their living by fishing on a riverbank. He father also carries a secret duty of transporting revolutionary cadres across the river to do their mission. Little Nga also helps her father with that secret duty. French troops have suspected little Nga’s family for a long time of coordinating with people of the resistance war. When hearing that there will be a group of cadres crossing the river, the French tied little Nga’s father and forced her to pretend doing her daily routine in order to trick the cadres. However, little Nga used her cleverness, wisdom, and bravery to rush to the riverbank to alert the cadres of the French troops. While doing that, she was shot down. Just before her last breath, little Nga releases a passerine bird – a dear friend of hers – whom she has been taking care of.
AWARDS
* Recipient of the Golden Prize, Vietnam Film Festival 1963.
* Special Prize of the Jury, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1963
MISSING THE COUNTRYSIDE
(Vietnam/1995/Colour/112 mins.)
Directors: Dang Nhat Minh
Writer: Dang Nhat Minhy
Huy Thiep Nguyen
Stars: Tat Binh, Van Le, Bich Ngoc
Nostalgia for Country land is a poetic and evocative story set in a small village in North Vietnam’s delta. Nham, an innocent country boy of sixteen, lives with his mother, sister, and sister-in-law and must support the family, working all day in the rice fields, because his father and older brother are away. One day a neighbor asks him to pick up her visiting niece, Quyen, who has been living overseas. Quyen’s journey back to her home village is a sentimental one, spurred by memories of pastoral pleasures, but the world she encounters now is harsher and more difficult. Nham, however, is smitten by her, and Dang Nhat Minh weaves a story of a young man’s awakening and an expatriate’s realization of the realities that now exist in her country land.
AWARDS
* Recipient of the Audience Award, Fribourg International Film Festival 1997.
* ACCT Promotional Award, Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film 1996
* Audience Award, Nantes Three Continent’s Film Festival 1996.
* Netpack Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival 1996.
WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES
(Vietnam/1984/B&W/85 mins.)
Director: Dang Nhat Minh
Writer: Dang Nhat Minh
Stars: Van Le, Luu Viet Bao Dang, Phu Cuong Lai
A melodrama tamed by its theme of suppressed passions and quiet grief, When the Tenth Month Comes tells of a young woman who journeys to the front to visit her soldier husband, only to learn that he has been killed. She decides to conceal the sad news, seemingly indefinitely, from her in-laws, with whom she lives. To this end, she persuades the village schoolmaster to assist her by composing letters in the husband’s name. The degree to which she believes them herself is revealed only gradually. Meanwhile, their association starts tongues wagging among the local busy-bodies and self-righteous party members, and the schoolmaster is forced to relocate. A cross between The Return of Martin Guerre and Cyrano de Bergerac-with a bit of All That Heaven Allows thrown in for good measure-When the Tenth Month Comes is nevertheless uniquely Vietnamese in its poetics.
AWARDS
- Golden Lotus Award at the 7th Vietnam Film Festival in 1985 .
- Special Award at Film Festival International Asia – Pacific year 1989 .
- Certificate of Merit by the Committee for the Protection of Peace, at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1985.
- Special jury prize at the 1985 Hawaii International Film Festival .
- One of the eighteen best Asian films of all time by CNN
HANOI WINTER 1946
(Vietnam/1997/Colour/88 mins.)
Director: Dang Nhat Minh
Writer: Dang Nhat Minh. Hoang Nhuan Cam
Stars: Tien Hoi, Vo Hoai Nam, Quang Hai, Quach Thu Phuong..
Melodrama set in Hanoi in late 1946. Lam, a law student, works as a liaison between President Ho Chi Minh and French High Commissioner Sainteny as Ho Chi Minh tries to negotiate peaceful autonomy from France. The negotiations break down due to resistance by the French generals. Ho Chi Minh leaves the city to join the armed resistance. Lam, whose wife has just given birth, joins the fighting in Hanoi.
THE DESERTED FIELD
(Vietnam/1979/B&W/90 mins.)
Director: Hong Sang Nguyen
Writer: Quang Sang Nguyen
Stars: Toi Lam, Thuy An Nguyen, De Xuan
The film completely takes place within the perimeter of an empty field, but it exploits both the space under the water (from under the water surface of the field) and the edges of the sky (where there are American warplanes conducting raids).
The setting is the area of Dong Thap Muoi during the days of the Vietnam war. Ba Do, his wife and small child live in a small shack in the middle of the water. They are entrusted by the revolution with the mission of maintaining the lines of communication for the armed forces. The author focused much of the plot’s development upon the daily life of the husband and wife, like planting rice, caring for their child, catching snakes, and catching fish, but interwoven with this are American military helicopters raiding the watery field to uncover the guerilla soldiers operating there. When Ba Do is shot by an American helicopter, his wife shoots the helicopter down in order to avenge him.
THE RETURN
(Vietnam/1994/Colour/55 mins.)
Director: Dang Nhat Minh
Loan – a teacher from Hanoi was assigned to teach in a Southern coastal area. Loan and Hung, her room-matea’s brother fell in love with each other at first sight. However, Hung had to go overseas illegal with his own family. Loan then got married to Tuan – a former classmate who has just returned home after his study abroad for 6 years. He studied physics but changed his career as a businessman while Loan left the school and returned to city “confining” herself in Tuan’s villa. Hung returned to homeland as a representative of a foreign company to discuss economic contact with director Tuan. After finishing his work with Hung. Tuan asked his secretary to “compromise” for a working visit to Hung’s Company. At first, Hung did not agree but when he knew that Tuan was Loan’s husband, he agreed. After Tuan and his secretary left country for their “overseas business”, Loan worked again as a teacher in a school in Buoi – her home village
