Home >> Filmmakers Info >> Interviews

Interview with Director Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo: 
Passionate Waters

by Ysa Le

The following are excerpts from an interview conducted by Ysa Le with Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo, the director of hits like Buffalo Boy and Nước.   

Sáo (Quỳnh Hoa) mourning the lost of her husband.

Your first feature film, Buffalo Boy, also features water as a central theme. How did the experience of making Buffalo Boy inspire your work in Nước?	∧
Buffalo Boy was set in the 1930's during the cyclical flooding season in the Mekong Delta where water was a metaphor for both life and death, two things that are opposite but inseparable. 2030, the English title for the current film, was made exactly ten years later and was set a century later in 2030's. The Vietnamese title of the film is Nước 2030, where Nước means "water." As in Buffalo Boy, water remains an omnipresent character in 2030 and not just an element in the background. Water covers more than three quarters the surface of earth at the present time. With the predicted rise of sea level due to the global climate change, it will submerge even a greater portion of the world's landmass that has become so scarce for the ever-increasing human population. The rising sea level can have devastating effects on regions such as South Vietnam where there is a large population that lives on lands that are under or barely above the sea level. According to some prediction, water may submerge up to 50% of the farmland needed for food production in South Vietnam and impose huge mass exodus by 2030. Water, a symbol of purification in many cultures, a medium that links every life on this planet, may become the most feared element in the near future.
How did you come to the idea of making Nước?	∧
About three years ago, an investor who was a fan of Buffalo Boy, approached me to adapt a short story, Nước Như Nước Mắt, written by Nguyễn Ngọc Tư. I liked the main characters, the woman and her husband but didn't think that the story lends itself very well to be a screenplay (at least by me). The investor was then open to another vision of a film, set in the near future, the years of 2030's, when due to the lost of farmland by rising sea level, 80% of the population of South Vietnam has been evacuated. Multinational corporations will rush to Vietnam to build floating farms that can resolve the shortage of vegetables by techniques such as desalination or evaporation to provide fresh water needed for cultivation. However, the cost of such a solution may be inhibitedly high. A lower-cost solution could be provided by manipulating the genes in food plants, allowing them to grow with salt water or even in salt water. But no one knows for sure how safe these genetically modified organisms are for human consumption? Ultimately, our ways of coping could change us. There’'s no way to know for sure. Yet we must forge ahead. It is not a "science fiction" film as usually understood in cinema, but rather an intimate human story set in an adverse environmental condition due to the global climate change. As I start to write the script, I am immediately fascinated by the idea that more than a century of fossil fuels consumed by the Europe and North America can somehow completely change the life of a young Vietnamese fisherman couple in the 21st century. "Nước" in the Vietnamese title means water but it also means a country, a nation, and the rising water level can have such a profound effect on a country, even completely erase the existence of a nation from the surface of the earth.
What was the biggest challenge in making Nước and how did you overcome them?	∧
From the start, I wanted to follow in detail the daily life of the people who stay behind in this apocalyptic region in 2030 South Vietnam. So the idea that I discussed with Bao Nguyen, the producer and director of photography was to make a “"documentary of the future”". Many scenes in the script are set on fast moving skiffs and night scenes on small wooden boat with dialogue, where the use of generator is out of the question. We discussed and planned out every thing we can think of. But it is mainly Bao who comes from the background of documentary filmmaking that has made it possible for us to make this documentary of the future. Using batteries and a few simple light sources and working in extremely tight space, Bao was able to create the atmosphere that the film calls for. So the shoot has been very green in terms of Carbon footprint. On other hand, we need a genetic engineering laboratory floating on the ocean. We have considered using CGI (computer graphic imaging), miniature mockup and green screen, but none of these solutions alone can give us the satisfactory answer within our very limited mean. We ended up using a combination of CGI, some green screen, and most important of all, building the real scale set floating on the coast of Cần Giờ. Due to the complexities of building such a structure, our production design budget became disproportionately high. We have to find a design and materials that would be within the budget of the film. It has taken Trương Trung Đạo, the production designer months to come up with the design and finally to build it. It was certainly not an ideal set and we had to modify our shoot in many ways, but it did allow us to have all the images we need. Again, Bao has made a crucial contribution and deserves all the credit for overcoming all the shortcomings of this set to keep the visual style of the film as called for. Last but not least is the scheduling of the shooting to keep the continuity with the ever-changing sea level in Cần Giờ that has two high and low tides every day. Bành Quang Minh Nhật, our first assistant director had to study the tide table weeks in advance and constantly pushed us during the shooting as the water level keeps changing. Lý Ngọc Oanh, our gaffer and his PS team have done more than what called for to allow us to realize my vision of 2030.
Nước is currently in the international festival circuit. It was recently screened at Busan International FF, how was the audience response? What was your experience there?	∧
Before Busan, we started with Berlinale, the world premier for 2030, where it was selected as the opening night for the 2014 Panorama section which includes more than 40 films from noted directors from Alain Resnais to Tsai Ming Liang. Tickets for 2030 was sold-out within 15 minutes of the release online, possibly due to the previous press screening with very positive reviews from the local media. Berlinale kept adding more theaters and ends up screening it in 5 theaters simultaneously to almost two thousand viewers in the opening night. Tickets kept being sold-out in 4 more screenings within days after that. Busan is another pleasant surprise. One more theater was also added for the Asian premier night for 2030 due to early tickets sold-out. It is most striking that the audience in Busan are mostly well educated college-aged and their reactions during the Q&A are most enthusiastic with comments not only on the visual language to the acting, but also reflecting an awareness of the issues relating to global warming and genetic engineering. Another point that kept coming back in many festivals is the ending that is inspired by magic realism, my homage to the South American writers, in particular Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
You have been making films in Vietnam for a number of years now. From your perspective, how has the Vietnamese film industry evolved in the last decade?	∧
The most remarkable change to me has been the development of the infrastructure of filmmaking in Vietnam thanks to the greater number of feature films and television productions. The availability of state-of-the-art cinematographic equipments as well as high quality local technicians, and most important of all the emergence of new talents, have improved so much in the last five years. Finally, the influx of many skills both behind and in front of the camera from Vietnamese abroad have changed the landscape of filmmaking in Vietnam tremendously.
Can you tell us about your next project?	∧
I have several projects in different stages of development and I am not sure which one will get made first. The financing of personal films has become so complex and difficult that it has taken so long to bring a project to fruition. On the other hand, the market for indie film is being challenged from many different fronts. We need every support possible, in particular from the distribution side to keep personal film productions alive. I am grateful to Viet Film Fest who has screened all my films including the first short that I made back in 2003. Your pioneering and continuing endeavor to present Vietnamese films to the community has not only been an important cultural event but has also played a huge part in the financing and distribution of several films. That is certainly not a small success.

Date of posting:  January 5, 2015