A Village Called Versailles

USA 2009
75 min / color video
English and Vietnamese with English subtitles
Producer / Director:   S. Leo Chiang
Cinematographers:   S. Leo Chiang, Francis James
Sound:  Phil Perkins
Music: Joel Goodman
Editors:  Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Amy Young

In this moving documentary, A Village Called Versailles, award-winning director Leo Chiang captures the resilient spirit of a small Vietnamese-American community in the easternmost region of New Orleans. He documents how they recovered and rebuilt their community after Hurricane Katrina. When threatened with the establishment of a storm debris landfill near their homes, the community visibly transforms from a formerly isolated Vietnamese refugee group into a politically active, empowered and united people that have found their voices.

In 1975, a group of Vietnamese refugees resettled in the New Orleans public housing project known as “Versailles Arms.” Most shared roots from the same three predominantly Catholic villages in North Vietnam and in 1954 had fled from North to South Vietnam to escape prosecution from the Communist government. The community expanded to 8000 members as fellow refugees joined their family and friends in Versailles, now the densest ethnically Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.

Like others in New Orleans who experienced the devastation of hurricane Katrina, the residents of Versailles lost their cars, homes and jobs. While many Vietnamese Americans of New Orleans East evacuated and faced many hardships, more than half the community returned only six weeks after Katrina to recover the life they established more than thirty years ago in the United States. With the Catholic Church becoming the focal center providing supplies and food, the Versailles Vietnamese struggled together to redevelop their village. Young and old stood side by side to physically rebuild their homes and lives, visibly becoming a stronger community.

When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered that a dumpsite be established less than two miles from Versailles, they came together in a resounding effort to meet this threat. Not only would thousands of trucks disturb the area and create an unsightly mountain range of trash and storm debris; this trash would soak through and contaminate the community’s water system, destroy plant life and endanger the health and livelihood of Versailles residents. Together with supporters from outside the community, they fought for the landfill’s removal. They vocalized and demonstrated their opposition - and triumphed.

Documenting the transformation and hard-won victory of this community, A Village Called Versailles radiates with hope. With powerful testimonies and heartrending imagery of the destruction caused by the flood, Chiang highlights many difficult aspects of the immigrant experience such as political inaction and a widening generation gap. As shown with this touching documentary, however, a community steeped in such experiences can emerge — politically empowered and united in the face of adversity.
-Nam Giao Do

“Dust in the Wind”

Spotlight on Dustin Nguyen

By Jenni Trang Le

Growing up biculturally in America is a beautiful thing, a fortunate thing, and at times, a struggle you cannot articulate.  And then one fateful day, you turn on your television set and watch a program about undercover cops who infiltrate the high school system and you see an Asian face.  You push aside thoughts of Christian Slater and Mark-Paul Gosselaar to make way for a new crush: Officer Ioki.  As the credits roll, your heart stops as your brain reads: Dustin Nguyen… he’s Vietnamese?! And so, for the first time in this American girl’s fantasy world, there was an Asian man.

In 2005’s Visual Communications Film Festival, members of the theatre troupe, Cold Tofu, sang a rendition of the famous 1977 hit single, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas and changed the lyrics to croon, “all we are is Dustin Nguyen…”  Yes, indeed.

Dustin started his cinematic journey in his twenties, but originally wanted to be a director, not an actor.  “When I was rejected by UCLA’s film school, a series of events put me on the actor’s path.  That rejection was painful at the time, but turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Dustin confides.  Although both his parents were entertainers back in the motherland, it took a while for them to come around to Dustin’s career choice.  But he stayed true and focused.

ViFF 2009 would like to spotlight Dustin Nguyen not only for his achievement in acting in such varied roles as “Jonny,” a heroin dealer looking for a second chance, in Little Fish (2005), “Sy,” a villain with an even darker past, in The Rebel (2006), “Troy,” an Asian American actor who wants quality roles in a stereotypical industry, in Finishing the Game (2007), “Kim,” a Viet Kieu director coming back to Viet Nam to make a name for himself, and most recently, “Long,” a victim of Agent Orange who learned to kick ass at an early age and finds himself on a happenstance quest to save a young girl’s innocence in The Legend is Alive (2009). ViFF would also like to recognize Dustin for always pushing the envelope of what Hollywood perceives is a Vietnamese Actor.  Dustin won a Canh Dieu Vang (Golden Kite) Award for Best Male Leading Actor in this year’s awards for memorable his role in The Legend is Alive.

This year’s festival will screen Little Fish, a feature film starring such Australian heavy-hitters as Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, and Sam Neill and is directed by Rowan Woods.  The film is set in Little Saigon of Sydney, Australia, and Dustin trained for months on his accent as well as immersed himself solely into the character of a man whose world of drugs collides in a car accident that changes his life forever.  Several underwater motifs in the film show how suffocated the characters feel, as they struggle to overcome economic frustrations and emotional binds post-addiction.  Dustin’s complex performance as “Jonny” takes your breath away and his silences color each scene with a deeper level of thought.  The chemistry between Cate and Dustin is raw and real, and the shower love scene is refreshingly sensual and intense.

Aside from his roles in front of the camera, Dustin has always had a hand off-camera.  In one of the more famous “21 Jump Street” episodes, “Christmas in Saigon,” it is discovered that Officer Ioki is actually a Vietnamese immigrant who took on an alias in order to have a better chance at getting a coveted spot at the police academy.  Considering how the show had aired between 1987-1990, this topic was quite progressive.  The episode tells of Ioki’s past through a series of flashbacks, even reenacting the moment when his family tries to escape Viet Nam via boat.  “That show was ahead of its time for sure.  It came about because the producers found out I was Vietnamese after they cast me.  The role was written in a non-race-specific nature.  So, they approached me about integrating the Vietnamese aspect of it into my character.  I resisted it at first because I felt it would be too predictable and cliché just because I am Vietnamese.  But when they pitched me the episode story, and enlisted me to help write it to ensure its humanity, I felt it was worthwhile.  And in the end I think many people loved that episode.  Filming it was a little unsettling because it felt too close to home.  I felt very “naked” emotionally.  But it was done with much sensitivity from the producers of the show - and it showed.”

Dustin is “very excited about the very small wave of Vietnamese American filmmakers making interesting films in the past year or so and the small movement of Vietnamese cinema that’s happening right now in Viet Nam.  These filmmakers are finding ways to make films that they want to make, [having] more control of their artistic visions and working outside the Hollywood system. I applaud them.”  Dustin speaks passionately of the “Viet Film Wave” - the new moniker for this generation of diasporic Vietnamese filmmakers who have earned a place in cinematic history by supporting each other’s storytelling.  Dustin has worked with Vietnamese diasporic directors, such as Charlie Nguyen on The Rebel and Luu Huynh on The Legend is Alive, and is constantly working on new scripts and projects to keep the wave flowing.

ViFF is a venue where community and art connect in a way that undoubtedly inspires and lights fires in an inter-generational, groundbreaking way.  “I’m a big fan of Ysa and all her staff at ViFF,” Dustin says with a smile.  “It’s the only one of its kind where Vietnamese filmmakers can show their work.  It’s extremely vital.  I hope it will continue to encourage the community, specifically Vietnamese, to come out and support the arts, which to me is an important aspect of any culture.”

Dustin Nguyen has always been a symbol of hope for Vietnamese artists everywhere and he continues to look forward to the future with optimism.  As for all the challenges that face him both personally and professionally, it is what puts even more soul into those deep, dark eyes.  And the rest is dust in the wind…

Sad Fish

Orchid Lam Quynh in SAD FISH, directed by Le-Van Kiet.

Sad Fish is the second feature for this young filmmaker who is anything but conventional.  In this film, Le Van Kiet experiments with a non-linear, improvised script (yes, I said “improvised” a la Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise).  Yet, it feels so natural that it is difficult to imagine how it could be better with scripted dialogue.  Although most of us have already seen three of the four main characters in title roles of other films, their acting this time feels completely different from anything they have done before.  Most of them have been type-casted for certain roles; however, Sad Fish will shatter those preconceptions.

Building on the his last film, Dust of Life (Bui Doi), Kiet continues to reveal stories within the Vietnamese community in Little Saigon, but this time he talks about the even darker side of our community masked by the Mercedes-driving, Banana-Republic-wearing, American-dream-living good folks who behind this façade have surmounting debts and live a life of loneliness and desperation.

Set in present-day Little Saigon, Sad Fish follows four characters who have suffered a kind of loss and for whom this is (or appears to be) their final day existing in their current state.  They are almost trapped in their glass-bowl worlds looking out, yet, unable to reach the other world they see-much like a fish in an aquarium.  An older woman (Kieu Chinh, Face, Journey From the Fall) resolving to die this day, leaves her home and all her worldly possessions behind to journey an existential path to her expected “death.”  A foreign-exchange student (Orchid Lam Quynh, Asia music series) is desperate to stay in the U.S. at any cost, except by actually working hard.  A failed real-estate agent (Long Nguyen, Green Dragon, Journey From the Fall) loses his job and his sanity, but still has his wits about him.  Finally, a young man (Jayvee Mai, The Anniversay, Journey From the Fall) is forced to confront a secret he has kept in the closet.  Their four separate paths converge to an emotionally tense ending, when everyone’s true limits are tested and where the truth and real life is never black or white.

- Tram Le

Spotlight on Women Filmmakers: Unsewing Image and Sound

Surname Viet, Given Name Nam, directed by Trinh T. Minh-Ha (USA, 1989)

In 1989, when I first saw Trinh Minh-Ha’s film, Surname Viet, Given Name Nam, it bore a significant imprint upon me because of the ways that this film cinematically articulated a distinctly feminist perspective on history, nationalism, and politics, all of the issues that are conventionally understood to be dominated by men.  Since then, there has been a wide array of important films directed by Vietnamese women in the U.S. and Australia, such as From Hollywood to Hanoi (1993) by Tiana Thi Thanh Nga and Xich-Lo (1996) by M. Trinh Nguyen and Traps (1993) by Pauline Chan.  In Vietnam, women filmmakers like Việt Linh (Chung Cư and Gánh Xiếc Rong) and Phạm Nhuệ Giang (Thung Lũng Hoang Vắng) have made films that show the different sides of postwar Vietnamese society. Today, instead of just seeing Vietnamese women on screen, then, we are now seeing that more and more Vietnamese women filmmakers are directing a great number of films, breaking new ground for other generations of women filmmakers to come.
This year, as one of ViFF’s festival organizers, I am proud to have helped to spotlight Vietnamese American women filmmakers and their films and to recognize the works of women who have been an integral part of the Vietnamese American filmic landscape.   Within this dynamic landscape, women’s roles have been multiple: as actors, directors, screenwriters, editors, and producers.  Their films also encompass a variety of filmic techniques, themes, and genres.  Against many cultural and socioeconomic factors, the female filmmakers presented here persist in realizing their stories and images into film.  In so doing, they work to undo the images of Vietnamese women in film that have rendered us prostitutes and dragon ladies in countless other films that came before. Ultimately this spotlighting of female filmmakers celebrates the ways in which women produce films.  Here, at ViFF, we believe it is about time.

By Lan Duong, Ph.D.

Footy Legends

Austrailia / 2006 / 89 minutes / 35mm color
English and Vietnamese with English subtitles
View trailer

Footy Legends takes the feel-good sports movie and turns it on its ear. Co-writer and director Khoa Do’s feature film revolves around Luc Vu (played by co-writer Anh Do) and the world of Australian rugby.

Footy Legends is set in the dead-end west Sydney suburb of Yagoona, a fitting world for Luc and his down-and-out friends, a rag-tag and ethnically diverse group of mates who were former rugby teammates in high school. When Luc, already distraught from being laid off from his job at a warehouse, is faced with social services taking away his little sister Anne (a darling performance by Lisa Saggers), he decides to gather his old team and enter the Holden Cup, an amateur rugby tournament that promises modeling jobs to the winning side.

Per the sports film genre, Footy Legends gotes through its paces: Luc’s team reunites, stumbles, nearly gets blown out in the championship match, and then musters their inner strength to come up victorious. But what separates Footy Legends from other sports films is its historical context and emotional core. Luc and his sister are closely tied to the Vietnam War and the refugee experience. Their mother has recently passed away and their father’s absence, though never mentioned, deftly implies that he died during the war. Their only connection to the past is their grandfather (a film-stealing performance by Dao Minh Sinh) who has war-genre bending secrets of his own.

Footy Legends succeeds because like all good comedy, the story negotiates sorrow without being heavy-handed and its heartfelt acting brings the audience along for the score.

Synopsis author: Ky-Phong Tran

Producers: Megan McMurchy, Anh Do

Director: Khoa Do

Writers: Khoa Do, Anh Do, Suzanne Do

Cinematographer: Martin McGrath Sound: Sam Petty

Music: Dale Cornelius

Editor: Suresh Ayyar

Main Cast: Anh Do, Angus Sampson, Paul Nakad, Jason McGoldrick, Shane MacDonald, Steven Rooke, Tristian Fereti, Lisa Saggers, Dao Minh Sinh, Emma Lung, Matthew Johns, Andrew Voss, Peter Phelps, and Claudia Karvan

All About Dad

written & directed by Mark Tran

Mark Tran’s poignant feature debut “All About Dad” begins with a deceptively simple image-that of a Vietnamese father trying to straighten a leaning tree on his immaculate front lawn with his bare hands, but with no success. Instead of giving up and allowing the tree to bend naturally, the father becomes more stubborn and frustrated as he repeatedly tries to fight and undo nature.

And so we are introduced to Mr. Do, the patriarch of the Do family. There is no doubt that Mr. Do loves his wife and four children-Ty, Xuan, Binh, and Linh. It is also painfully apparent that his love constitutes strict roles, responsibilities, and expectations of what each child should act, think, and feel. In Mr. Do’s eyes, the only correct path to success and happiness in life is complete devotion to the Catholic faith, higher education, and the goal of having a stable job. Any digression from these three tenants is a recipe for compromise and failure in the world.

Much to his dismay and disappointment, Mr. Do quickly realizes that every one of his children may not subscribe to his philosophy. Ty, the youngest of the Do clan, is on the verge of dropping his Biology major to devote full-time to being a filmmaker; Xuan, fresh from passing her medical board exam, is most at peace playing her guitar and singing; Binh, the straight A student, is completely enraptured by his secret girlfriend; Linh, already engaged, is afraid to tell her father that her fiancée is not Catholic. These potentially explosive revelations do not stay in the dark for long…And as a result, hilarity, poignancy, and redemption ensue when light is finally shed on them.

Much like a painter working with a vast canvas but still giving each color and shade its due, director Tran gives each character equal screen time, their struggles and triumphs conveyed through small yet poetic moments-a heartbreaking look in a mother’s eyes; an eye-opening reconciliation between two stubborn neighbors; a rooftop connection between sister and brother, aided by a song and the shimmering lights of the city at dusk.  All these moments blend seamlessly into a broad portrayal of a very modern Vietnamese American family. Tran’s deft and original handling of a seemingly familiar theme of old world (immigrant parents) vs. new world (kids born and raised in America) is what gives “All About Dad” a healthy and humanistic dose of poignancy and pathos.

By the time of its closing credits, director Tran comes full circle with that seemingly simple opening image of Mr. Do trying to physically straighten that ever-bending tree; it is an image that belies its multi-layered nuances and meanings. To give away any more of “All About Dad” would surely spoil this truly tender and unforgettable tale of getting out of the way and letting “nature” takes its course.

-Alex Luu

Ticket Information

All programs are subject to change and/or cancellation without prior notice. For general information, please call (714) 893-6145. PLEASE NOTE: ALL WORKS PRESENTED IN THE FESTIVAL ARE UNRATED. PLEASE CONSULT PROGRAM CATALOGUE.  PARENTAL GUIDANCE IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Dates: April 2-5, 9-12, 2009

TICKET INFORMATION

Click on Program Schedule and purchase tickets by PAYPAL

Tickets are also sold @ the door 30 minutes before screening

Ticket Prices

$8 general, $6 students w/ ID and seniors (65+), VAALA members

OPENING NIGHT

$18 screening, $40 screening and gala reception @ Chakra Resturant, Irvine

CLOSING NIGHT

$20 screening and gala reception @ Cross Cultural Center, UC Irvine

SET 8 (world-premiere of THE LAST DAY)  & SET 22 (SPOTLIGHT AWARD NIGHT)

$13 screening and wine reception

Festival Day Pass

$15 all screenings in one day

VIP Festival Pass

$150 all screenings including opening and closing night

Community Outreach:
April 3rd: Free all day for high school students with i.d.
April 10: Free all day for senior citizens 65+
All panel discussions are completely FREE and open to the public. Please refer to the program for more details.

Inaugural Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise Goes to Ham Tran

Ham Tran, writer/director of JOURNEY FROM THE FALL (photo by Carol Petersen)

Annual Awards Presentation: Thursday, April 2, 2009

New York, February 9, 2009 - Legendary stage and screen director Mike Nichols will receive the 2009 Vilcek Prize in the arts. “We have been awarding these prizes annually since 2006,” said Dr. Jan Vilcek, President and Cofounder of the Vilcek Foundation, “and this year I’m proud to announce the expansion of our awards program with the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, to recognize the successes of foreign-born individuals in the early stages of their careers in the arts and biomedical sciences.” Filmmaker Ham Tran has been named the first Creative Promise Prize recipient in the arts.

Of the new prize category, Marica Vilcek, Vice President and Cofounder of the Vilcek Foundation, explained, “We have always wanted to honor and publicize the contributions of a younger generation of immigrants working in the arts and sciences, to help them maximize their potential. Jan and I were in the early stages of our careers when we immigrated to the United States, and the professional support we received here was pivotal to our success.” The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise are presented to foreign-born individuals, 38 years old or younger, in the fields of biomedical science and the arts.

At the awards presentation, to be held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City, Thursday, April 2, 2009, Mr. Nichols and Dr. Huda Zoghbi, the 2009 recipient of the Vilcek Prize in biomedical science, will each receive a $50,000 cash award and a commemorative trophy created by designer Stefan Sagmeister. Creative Promise Prize winners Mr. Tran and Dr. Howard Chang, the 2009 recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in biomedical science, will each receive a $25,000 cash award and a plaque, also designed by Mr. Sagmeister.

The Vilcek Foundation, in meeting its primary purpose, to call attention to the accomplishments of immigrants currently working in United States, also serves to remind the public of the immeasurable contributions of the foreign-born to this country throughout its history. Dr. Vilcek points out, “Mike Nichols, the 2009 Vilcek Prize winner in the arts, is universally acclaimed for his film and theater work, but few realize that he, too, was born overseas, reminding us that the American movie industry in large part owes its growth and worldwide preeminence to immigrants.”

This year’s Vilcek Prize recipients demonstrate the truly global influence of America’s immigrants: Mike Nichols was born in Berlin, Germany; Dr. Huda Zoghbi in Beirut, Lebanon; Ham Tran in Saigon, Vietnam; and Dr. Howard Chang, in Taipei, Taiwan.

The 2009 arts winners were chosen by independent panels of experts. The jury for the Vilcek Prize included: producer Rudy Behlmer; Chuck Boller, Executive Director, the Hawaii International Film Festival; Geoffrey Gilmore, Director, the Sundance Film Festival; Rick Jewell, Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts; Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, the Museum of Modern Art; and Richard Schickel, Film Critic, TIME Magazine.  The jury for the Creative Promise Prize included: Sheril D. Antonio, Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Film, TV, and New Media, New York University; Rick Kinsel, Executive Director, the Vilcek Foundation; Ysa Le, Executive Director, the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association; Wesley Morris, Movie Critic, The Boston Globe; Lisa Schwarzbaum, Film Critic, Entertainment Weekly; and film producer Janet Yang.

About the Prize Recipients

Mike Nichols

Through his groundbreaking work in improvisational comedy, theater, and film, Mike Nichols has, for almost a half-century, shown us that through honesty - in particular, the special brand of honesty conferred by humor - we can make some sense of life, and when we can’t, to laugh at it. Only the most ardent of film and theater buffs, however, knows that this virtuoso of the American entertainment landscape was not born on American soil.
Mike Nichols began life as Michael Peschkowsky, in Berlin, the son of a Russian-born father and a German mother. With the voice of Hitler still ringing in his ears, he escaped to this country in 1939. Smart and quick-witted, early on Mr. Nichols found the power in humor, and began to master its intricacies, often using his childhood experiences as seed for laughter. He worked the ground while at the University of Chicago in the early 1950s, where luck landed him among a talented theater group; full germination occurred when he met and paired with the brilliant Elaine May. For four years, the duo refined the art of improvisational comedy.
After the pair broke up, Mr. Nichols found something he was even better at than comedy: directing. In less than ten years (1963−1972), he directed five hit plays on Broadway and won four Tonys. In 1966, he made the move to Hollywood. Directing the film version of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf earned him his first Academy Award nomination; the four leading actors were also nominated, a first in Academy history. He took an Oscar home for his second film, The Graduate, at the same time launching his reputation for audacious casting and an uncanny ability to bring out the best in actors.
Over the years, Mr. Nichols has proved to be consistently light on his directorial feet, moving deftly between stage, screen, and television; along the way, he added producer to his skill set. He is one of the elite in show business to have won all the major entertainment awards: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy. He has twice more been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (Silkwood and Working Girl), and once as producer (The Remains of the Day).  In addition to his Oscar, his awards shelf is weighed down by an astounding nine Tonys (Barefoot in the Park, Luv, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Annie, The Real Thing, Spamalot, and Whoopi), one Grammy (Best Comedy Album, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May), and four Emmys (two for Wit and two for Angels in America). He is the recipient of the George Abbott Award, the Lincoln Center Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, and the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award; he also has been recognized by the American Museum of the Moving Image for his contributions to the film industry. He is a co-founder of the New Actors Workshop in New York City.

Ham Tran

In the films of Ham Tran, stories gone untold too long are unraveled, voices kept silent too long are heard. They are the stories of the Vietnamese boat people and the survivors of the reeducation camps, and they are not easy to tell.

Born in Saigon, Mr. Tran immigrated as a refugee at the age of eight to America, with his ethnic Chinese Vietnamese parents. The desire to regain memories lost during the process of assimilation⎯“institutionalized amnesia,” he calls it⎯drew him to poetry, prose, playwriting, and, eventually, filmmaking. Even before leaving college, with a BA in English Literature from UCLA and an MFA from the UCLA School of Film and Television, Mr. Tran’s multifaceted talent for storytelling on film became evident⎯he writes, directs, edits, and produces. His first two short films, The Prescription and Pomegranate were semifinalists for the Student Academy Awards; and his 28-minute thesis film, The Anniversary, about two brothers separated by the Vietnam War, qualified for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short, in 2004, and has won more than 30 international film festival awards.

While working on The Anniversary, Mr. Tran became aware that no film had ever been made about the war years in Vietnam, from the Vietnamese perspective. His first feature film, Journey from the Fall, emerged from that realization. Inspired by a true story, it chronicles one family’s struggle for freedom as they flee their country after the fall of Saigon in 1975, as well as those forced to stay behind. Journey from the Fall was an Official Selection for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the FIPRESCI Award for Best ASEAN Film at the 2006 Bangkok Film Festival; it has won 16 international awards.

Mr. Tran is now working on his second feature film, Distant Country, about two Vietnamese illegal immigrants whose dreams of reaching the United States take them on a journey around the world. Another new project is a documentary film, tentatively titled, Sponsored ’75, which traces the lives of Vietnamese families rescued from four American refugee camps in 1975, and their sponsors.

Mr. Tran is part of a new Vietnamese filmmaking movement called the Viet Wave, whose mission is to bring Vietnamese-content films to American movie houses through Wave Releasing, the first Vietnamese-American film distribution company. He is an active member of the Asian and Pacific Islander community and serves on the board of the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association. He has also directed a promotional video for the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience and Empowerment, and worked with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance to create a curriculum around Journey from the Fall to help change the way the history of the Vietnam War is taught in high schools across America.

About the Vilcek Foundation

The Vilcek Foundation aims to raise public awareness of the contributions of immigrants to the sciences, arts, and culture in the United States. The Foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the Foundation was inspired by the couple’s careers in biomedical science and art history, respectively, as well as their personal experiences and appreciation for the opportunities offered them as newcomers to the United States. In addition to awarding annual prizes in the biomedical science and the arts, the Vilcek Foundation showcases the work of innovative artists, filmmakers, and others, many of them immigrants who have yet to achieve critical or financial success, at its headquarters at 167 East 73rd Street, New York City.
Former recipients of the Vilcek Prize in the arts include: architect/urban planner Denise Scott Brown; artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude; and classical music composer Osvaldo Golijov. Previous recipients of the Vilcek Prize in biomedical science are: Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, founding member of the Whitehead Institute at MIT; Dr. Joan Massagué, Chairman of the Cancer and Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and Dr. Inder Verma, a professor and researcher at the Salk Institute.
For more information about the Foundation, please visit www.vilcek.org.

Owl And The Sparow Coming To Theaters!

Directed by Stephane Gauger, Owl and the Sparrow is an enchanting film of modern-day Saigon and the encounter between a young man (a lonely zookeeper) and a woman (a flight attendant looking for love), and the young girl (a runaway), who brings them all together.  Universal in its story, particular in its vibrant scenes of Vietnam, this is a poignant tale of yearning, love, and commitment.  The film is released by the first Vietnamese Amerian film distribution company Wave Releasing.

January 16, 2009

Los Angeles - Laemmle Sunset 5

Orange County - Regal Garden Grove 16

Orange County - Irvine Westpark 8

January 23, 2009

San Jose, CA - Camera 3

February 6, 2009

Houston, TX - TBD

Dallas, TX - TBD

February 13, 2009

San Francisco - Sundance Kabuki Theater

Born in Saigon and raised in Orange County, Calif., Stephane Gauger received a bachelors degree in theatre and French literature. He subsequently worked in the camera and lighting departments on independent films in the United States and Southeast Asia, including Sundance winner Three Seasons, all the while honing his writing and directing craft on short narrative and documentary films.  Owl and the Sparrow, his feature debut, received nine awards at film festivals in 2007, including the audience award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and best narrative feature at the Asian Film Festivals of San Francisco, San Diego and Dallas.  Gauger was nominated for Breakthrough director at New York’s Gotham awards as well as the John Cassavetes awards at the Independent Spirit Awards.

UC Riverside’s Ghostly Film Festival & Spirited Conference

“Afternoon,” (”Buoi Chieu”) directed by Kim Spurlock (ViFF 2005)

Original Article from UCR Newsroom

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – In the spirit of Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and All Souls Day, UC Riverside will host a transnational film festival Oct. 31-Nov. 2 featuring works from Thailand, Vietnam and Burma that explore the supernatural through ghosts, hauntings and spirit channeling.

The festival, “The Supernatural in Southeast Asian Studies,” will explore themes of trauma, history, memory and the spectral in Southeast Asian cinema. Expressed through a variety of genres like the documentary, short feature and feature film, these ghost films differ from Japanese and Korean horror films that are au courant, as they draw up specific histories of war, colonialism and displacement as well as the spiritual traditions that mark these diverse regions.

Film screenings will be followed by public conversations with Asian and Asian American film directors and scholars in the fields of women’s studies, film and media studies, Southeast Asian studies and religious studies.

“This exciting gathering not only reaches across national, linguistic and cultural boundaries, but also encourages collaborative artistic and scholarly explorations of Southeast Asia in particular and the Pacific Rim as a whole,” said Tamara Ho, assistant professor of women’s studies at UCR.

Events will take place in the Arts Building on campus, Room 335, and at the UCR/California Museum of Photography, 3824 Main St., Riverside. The film festival and conversations with directors are free and open to the public. All films are subtitled in English.

The festival is organized by UCR scholars Ho; Lan Duong, assistant professor of media and cultural studies; and Justin McDaniel, associate professor of religious studies. It is sponsored by University of California Pacific Rim Research Program, and UCR’s Center for Ideas & Society, Center for Women in Coalition, Southeast Asia: Text, Ritual and Performance (SEATRiP) Program, and the Departments of Women’s Studies and Media & Cultural Studies.

Schedule of events:

Friday, Oct. 31
Location: UCR/California Museum of Photography (Ocularium, second floor)

1:00-1:10 p.m.: Welcome: Tammy Ho
1:10-2:10 p.m.: Keynote: Felicidad “Bliss” Lim, associate professor of film and media studies at UC Irvine.
2:15-2:30 p.m.: Discussion

2:30-3:15 p.m.: Film – “The Story of Spirits,” directed by Tien Nguyen. The return of a mother’s ghost, channeled through her husband’s new wife, leads her daughter to question her lifelong belief that her mother had abandoned her children.
3:15-3:30 p.m.: Film – “Afternoon,” directed by Kim Spurlock. Drawn by the grief of her husband and the desire to experience the vestiges of physical sensation, the spirit of the family matriarch comes calling.
3:30-4:15 p.m.: Discussion with directors Spurlock and Nguyen

7-8:30 p.m.: Film – “Nang Nak,” directed by Nonzee Nimibutr. This film is a haunting, heart-breaking romance based on a well-known Thai legend of love beyond the grave. Nimibutr is generally credited as the leader among a new wave of Thai filmmakers. This film won four awards at the Pan Asia Film Festival, including Best Picture and Best Director.
8:30-9:15 p.m.: Discussion

Both events will take place in the UCR Arts Building, third floor screening room.

Saturday, Nov. 1
Location: UCR/California Museum of Photography (Ocularium, second floor)

9:30-10 a.m.: Coffee and pastries
10-10:15 a.m.: Introduction to “Mae Nak” by graduate student Arnika Fuhrmann
10:15-10:45 a.m.: Film – “Mae Nak,” directed by Pimpaka Towira. Towira’s evocative film offers a new structure for visualizing and narrating this classic ghost story. In 1998, the film won a Special Jury Prize from the Image Forum Festival in Japan.
10:45-11:30 a.m.: Discussion with director Towira

1-2:30 p.m.: Film – “When the Tenth Month Comes,” directed by Dang Nhat Minh. The plot revolves around a widow who safeguards her husband’s family from the truth about his death during Vietnam’s war with Cambodia. Recently picked as one of Asia’s best films of all time by CNN, the film explores the processes of mourning that the female protagonist undergoes and poignantly shows how the undead co-exist fluidly with those barely living, the widows of the war.
2:30-3:15 p.m.: Discussion
3:15-4 p.m.: Break
4-5:45 p.m.: Film – “Friends in High Places,” directed by Lindsey Merrison. The film explores modern Burmese nat worship and nat gadaws (spirit mediums). Nats are the spirits of humans killed by kings and those in power. The Burmese believe that nats can influence the material world and must be appeased by spirit mediums. The film highlights the ubiquitous power of the Burmese military government and how the supernatural is inextricably tied to the daily lives and survival strategies of ordinary Burmese.
5:45-6:30 p.m.: Discussion with director Merrison

Sunday, Nov. 2
Location: UCR/California Museum of Photography (Ocularium, second floor)

Working roundtable with scholars and directors. Invitation only.

For more information contact Lan Duong or Tamara Ho, or go to http://www.seatrip.ucr.edu.

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