The grayish and cool weather of late November in Hanoi took place the 2nd Hanoi international film festival (November 25 to 29), organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Vietnam Cinema Department, headed by famed Dr (Ms) Ngo Phuong Lan, also director of the festival. Two years after its first edition, it is a good way to remind us that Vietnam is on the map of Asian cinema (even though it doesn’t have a very strong place yet), and wants to attract more film-related people and businesses.
The 37 competition films in different sections (14 features, 13 short fictions, 5 short documentaries, and 5 animation films) came mostly from the Asia Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand. The main jury, chaired by German director Jan Schuette (along with Indonesian director Garin Nugroho, Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, Vietnamese actress Nguyen Thi Nhu Quynh, and New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis) presented the best film award to the Philippines movie Shackled (Posas), an entry of Cinemalaya 2012, directed by Lawrence Fajardo, a strong film dealing with a petty thief (Nico Antonio) having a rough time at the police station where he is detained. Also awarded were Turkish actor Ilyas Salman for Night of Silence, by Reis Celik, and Chinese actress Yin Yaning for Song of Silence (Yang Mei Zhou) (please do not confuse the two films, quite different in spite of their rather similar titles!). Tajik director Iskandar Usmonov was chosen best director for Telegram, along with Rei Celik for Night of Silence again, and the Jury prize went to the very spectacular Vietnamese SFX epic Blood Letter (Thien Menh Ahn Hung) by Victor Vu.
The short films jury, chaired by Vietnamese Eminent Artist Nguyen Vinh San (with Chalida Uabumrungjit, from Thailand, and Martin Delisle, from Canada) awarded the Indonesian film Starting from A (Bermula Dari A), by BW Purba Negara as best short, and Japanese female director Mina Yonezawa for Solo.
And last but not least, the Netpac Jury, chaired by Ashley Ratnavibushana, with Martine Therouanne (director of the Festival des Cinémas d’Asie in Vesoul, France), and Vietnamese director Ms Pham Nhue Giang, decided to give its prize to the outstanding Turkish film Night of Silence about a very special wedding, directed by Reis Celik, multi awarded in various film festivals (See the Netpac awards list). Of course, the Netpac members of the consulting board of the festival, mainly Aruna Vasudev, Jeannette Paulson Hereniko, and Philip Cheah, were all present, as Netpac strongly supports the festival.
The festival did have a number of events, like an exhibition and a conference on “Vietnamese cinema in a renewal state”, a retrospective of films entitled “Vietnamese movie collection”, the opening gala, and the quite colorful Closing Awards Ceremony, and last but not least, the extremely pleasant excursion and boat trip to the world famous Halong Bay, still a haven of beauty and silence, in spite of the mass tourism and mushrooming hotels. All this with the very efficient cooperation of the volunteers (roughly 200), who were always so helpful and friendly to the guests.
Of course, the Hanoi festival is still a young “baby festival”, and a number of technical points must be improved in the next editions. The weaker points are certainly the lack of information on the website before the opening, the lack of index in the official catalogue (how to find a film without it?!), the quite unclear layout of the movie schedules in the so-called “Booklet” (again, how to find a movie schedule and venue? It should be indicated in the catalogue with the film), and also the absence of shuttle vans to the far away screening venues (malls) for most of the guests, who have to pay their own taxis (fortunately, we are not in Tokyo!). I am sure that those weak points will be studied and bettered in the next edition, which should take place in 2014.
Meanwhile, long live the Hanoi festival, and Asian Cinema!
by Max Tessier