Netpac publishes book on the cinema of Vietnam

Aditya Monday December 1, 2008

“Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema” is the first book on Vietnamese cinema in English. It was published this May in Indonesia by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC).

NETPAC gathers over 50 famous cinema activists in Asia and Europe, Australia and the US and in 2007 this organisation began to publish books to introduce Asian cinema to the world. Dr. Lan’s book is the first work published by NETPAC.

Going to the US with Dr. Lan were Philip Cheah, co-editor of the book, who is Director of the Singapore International Film Festival and Vietnamese Director Pham Nhue Giang, whose Thung lung hoang vang (Deserted Valley) won the FIPRESSCI Award for Promising Asian Director at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2002.

The group called on Honolulu, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Deserted Valley was screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival while the book was introduced at the festival press conference.

They also attended workshops on Vietnamese movies at Hawaii University, the Washington University in Seattle, Pomona College and famous UCLA University in Los Angeles. Before each workshop, a 20-minute clip containing extracts of some typical Vietnamese films in different periods was introduced, with brief comments on the characteristics of modernity and nationality in Vietnamese cinema.

Attendants at these workshops were movie researchers, doctors and professors on Southeast Asian history and culture so they were really interested in Vietnam in general and Vietnamese cinema in particular.

Participants often asked about the Vietnamese state’s investment in cinema, film censorship and new trends in Vietnamese cinema. Their doubts about censorship in Vietnam disappeared after they watched an extract from the film Bar Girls and learned it was a state-funded film, Dr. Lan said.

 

by Philip Cheah


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