Queer Cinema from Vietnam at Viet Film Festival in Orange, California

Fri Apr 15 17:56:19 PDT 2016

Two features and one short depict queer cinema from Vietnam are will be screening Sunday, 17 April 2016 at VAALA<http://www.vaala.org/>'s Vietnamese Film Festival<http://www.vietfilmfest.com/festival/program-schedule/> that has just opened at the AMC 30 (The Outlets) in Orange, California.

See blog: http://subversities.blogspot.com/2016/04/queer-cinema-from-vietnam-at-vietnamese.html

dan

Daniel C. Tsang

Distinguished Librarian

Data Librarian and Bibliographer for Asian American Studies,

Economics, Political Science, Orange County documents (interim)

468 Langson Library, University of California, Irvine

PO Box 19557, Irvine CA 92623-9557, USA

1 949 824 4978 (Tel); 1 949 824 0605 (Fax), dtsang at uci.edu<mailto:dtsang at uci.edu> (E-mail)

Office hours: 4-4:30 p.m. Fridays when on campus, or by appointment

My Subject Guides: http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/profile.php?uid=2616

Nicolas Lainez niklainez at gmail.com

Fri Apr 15 18:23:56 PDT 2016

Dear list,

The film Finding Phong that is screened at VAALA’s festival is incredibly powerful. It is a truly intimate, sensitive and touching documentary that follows the struggle of Phong, a young man living in Hanoi, as he transforms into a woman in Thailand. It received the prestigious Grand Prix Nanook-Jean Rouch at the Festival Jean Rouch in France. The filmmakers, Swann Dubus and Tran Phong Thao, have recently made another film about AIDS and drug-use among the Tai people, called "Up the Hills, Down the Valley" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Au1cfBnCM).

There is another very powerful cinéma vérité documentary film about transgenders in Vietnam which has received less attention: "Madame Phung’s Last Journey" (http://icarusfilms.com/new2015/mme.html <http://icarusfilms.com/new2015/mme.html>). This film .takes the viewer on a year-long ride with an itinerant troupe of cross-dressing performers, led by Madam Phung, as they travel the remote southern regions and central highlands. From change rooms, to on-stage performances, to time spent in tour buses, Vietnamese filmmaker Nguyễn Thị Thấm develops a remarkable and intimate rapport with the performers. They share their fears, expose their vulnerabilities, and talk about the challenges of being gay in Vietnam: including employment discrimination and dealing with audiences who might just as easily throw rocks at the performers as try to hit on them during the show. This film addresses many issues that are under-researched in Vietnam including indebtedness, informal finance, gambling, astrology, stigma and violence, and the creation of families and fictive kinship bonds for solidarity and mutual help purposes.

Best wishes,

Nicolas Lainez

IRIS/EHESS

Paris/Singapore

Chuck Searcy chuckusvn at gmail.com

Fri Apr 15 20:56:17 PDT 2016

*Finding Phong* was first shown last year at the Hanoi Cinematheque, to a

packed house of mostly young Vietnamese and a number of older Vietnamese as

well as foreigners. The film is a remarkable documentary, a very intimate

sharing of a young person's life-changing experience in a quest to be the

person *she *truly is.

Equally remarkable, for many of us foreigners, is the warm and endearing

portrait of Phong's family, the older brother, sister-in-law, and

especially Phong's aging mother and father. Both in their eighties, the

parents live in poor and rural Viet Nam, traditionally and timelessly.

They might be expected to face a troubling and puzzling range of emotions

-- anger, denial, rejection -- on realizing the path their son, about to be

their daughter, has chosen.

However, the filmmakers' close and intimate portrayal of the parents'

adjustment, their processing of the new reality they're facing and the

unwavering love and support they give to Phong, offer a revealing look at

aspects of Vietnamese family life, culture, and pride that are rarely seen

by foreigners.

The story includes humor as well -- with stereotypes, sexual innuendo, and

conventional "wisdom" regarding various social taboos eliciting knowing

laughter from an appreciative Vietnamese audience.

Phong, with her elderly mother, have gone on to become persuasive and

effective advocates before Viet Nam's National Assembly, speaking out for

reforms in Viet Nam's laws regarding same-sex relationships and gender.

CHUCK SEARCY

*============================================*

*CHUCK SEARCY*

*International Advisor, Project RENEW*

*Tư Vấn Viên Quốc tế, Dự án RENEW*

*Vice President, Veterans For Peace Chapter 160*

*Phó chủ tịch, Cưu Chiến Binh vì Hoà Bình Chương 160 (Hòa Bình)*

*Co-Chair, NGO Agent Orange Working Group*

*Đồng Chủ tịch, Nhóm làm việc Phi chính phủ về Chất độc da cam*

*71 Trần Quốc Toản, Hà Nội, Việt Nam*

*Mobile +8 490 342 0769*

*Skype chucksearcy*

*Email chuckusvn at gmail.com <chuckusvn at gmail.com>*

*Web **http://landmines.org.vn <http://landmines.org.vn/> *

*Web http://veteransforpeace.org <http://veteransforpeace.org>*

*Web http://vfp-vn.ning.com/ <http://vfp-vn.ning.com/>*

*Web **http://www.ngocentre.org.vn/workinggroups/agentorange

<http://www.ngocentre.org.vn/workinggroups/agentorange>*

*============================================*

Hakkarainen, Minna K minna.hakkarainen at helsinki.fi

Sun Apr 17 22:27:06 PDT 2016

Dear all,

does anyone know if the film Finding Phong is available in some format that could be bought? I searched for it from Amazon as I would love to show it to my students as part of the Gender and Development course that I am currently teaching. Especially when the lecture next week will focus on queer. Or, if you could recommend any other documentary on Vietnam in these lines that is available..

Best,

Minna Hakkarainen

PhD, Development Studies

University of Helsinki

Finland

Nhu Miller trantnhu at gmail.com

Mon Apr 18 07:42:22 PDT 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWxttO6QpMY

T.T. Nhu