Eight short documentary films on contemporary life in Vietnam will be presented free of charge tomorrow night, February 5, at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi.
The films were made by young amateur filmmakers who took part last year in a six-month workshop conducted by DOCLAB, a centre for documentary filmmaking and video art, based at the Goethe Institute.
The films were made in a new and experimental style which allowed the filmmakers to express their personal voice and independent vision on contemporary society. Characters in some of the films are silent, because the filmmakers wanted to let the ambient sounds and images tell their own stories.
In his 11-minute film Chuyen Moi Nha (Story of One), Pham Ngoc Lan uses the banality of Vietnamese State radio broadcasts to give a face to the unseen voices. The portraits and settings layered atop the aural landscape create questions, provide humour and offer context.
Nguyen Phuong Thao's 10-minute film Nhung Mon Qua (Gifts) is a direct dialogue between the director and the characters about a well known, yet strange topic: sex. By choosing to film in an open structure, the director is sharing an experience with the viewer and together discovers stories which will never personally belong to them.
English subtitles will accompany all the films. Audiences will have the opportunity to meet and talk with filmmakers after the screenings which begin at 8 pm tomorrow.
