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.