MASTER: FEATURE SYNOPSES (VFF 2025)
Detective Kien: The Headless Horror (Thám tử Kiên: Kỳ án không đầu) (2025, Vietnam; dir. Victor Vũ)
Friday, October 10 at 7:00 PM
Detective Kien: The Headless Horror (Thám tử Kiên: Kỳ án không đầu), through a mix of classic detective narrative and supernatural horror, brings audiences into a gripping mystery set during Nguyễn Dynasty Vietnam (the 19th century). The film follows the fearless Detective Kien (Quốc Huy) as he grapples with a series of concerning and chilling events that took place in a rural Vietnamese village. Kien must navigate a complex web of clues, suspicious characters, and unsettling local legends to uncover the truth behind a terrifying case. His investigation takes the audience deep into the heart of rural Vietnamese society, where ancient beliefs and tall tales clash with his rational approach – mapping out a thrilling and suspenseful journey.
Set against the evocative landscapes and cultural rhythms of 19th-century rural Vietnam, Director Victor Vũ (VFF 2013’s Blood Letter, VFF 2015’s Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass) creates a captivating and compelling world that showcases his mastery of storytelling and visual style – complete with carefully-studied period details. With striking color cinematography, the film weaves together the tension of a thriller, lighthearted humor, and horrific violence – all enriched by echoes of traditional Vietnamese superstitions.
By Quan Luong
The Ancestral Home (Nhà gia tiên) (2025, Vietnam; dir. Huỳnh Lập)
Friday, October 10 at 7:00 PM
Midnight Never Sleeps will be the short film shown before the screening.
The Ancestral Home (Nhà gia tiên) is a major Vietnamese studio film blending supernatural intrigue with heartfelt family drama. The story centers on Mỹ Tiên (Phương Mỹ Chi), a content creator, who returns to her ancestral home with the sole purpose of finding viral material for her online platforms. However, her quest for digital fame takes an unexpected turn when she encounters the restless ghost of her deceased brother, Gia Minh (Huỳnh Lập, who also directs). To bring peace to Gia Minh’s spirit, Mỹ Tiên reluctantly teams up with him. Their joint mission: to protect the ancestral home, which has become the center of a bitter family dispute. Greedy relatives are pressuring her grandfather to divide the sought after property, completely disregarding its historical and emotional significance to their family’s legacy.
The Ancestral Home delves into the universal struggle between tradition and practicality, as Mỹ Tiên’s contemporary pursuits collide with ancient beliefs and familial obligations. The film delivers a visually rich experience, drawing upon its deep Vietnamese roots to create a compelling and authentic atmosphere. The emotional story alternates between the comic and the emotional gut punches, with a resonant relationship between the lead and her brother as they find their way through the film’s conflict.
By Quan Luong
Once Upon a Love Story (Ngày xưa có một chuyện tình) (2024, Vietnam; dir. Trịnh Đình Lê Minh)
Saturday, October 11 at 12:00 PM
Once Upon a Love Story (Ngày xưa có một chuyện tình), adapted from Nguyễn Nhật Ánh’s novel of the same name, is a poignant coming-of-age melodrama centered on three childhood friends entangled in an evolving love triangle. The story begins with Phúc (Nhật Hoàng)’s unexpected homecoming, where a chance encounter with a little boy stirs memories of his youth spent with his closest friend Vinh (Avin Lu) and his beloved Miền (Ngọc Xuân). Growing up in a tranquil countryside town, the trio formed a deep bond through childhood. While Vinh harbored affection for Miền, Miền fell in love with Phúc. Yet, amidst their unspoken desires, the innocence of first love and the intimacy of friendship blossom with sincerity. As they come of age, the weight of family responsibilities casts a shadow over their once carefree world.
With the plot spanning from 1987 to 2000, the film gently evokes the ephemeral glow of youth. Director Trịnh Đình Lê Minh (VFF 2021’s Goodbye Mother) once more showcases his ability to coax emotional performances from a coterie of young actors. Through fresh performances, nostalgic settings, and meticulous cinematography, Trịnh quietly invites audiences to meditate on the power of love – its ability to endure, to wound, to transform, and ultimately, to heal.
By Xiangu Qi
Summer School, 2001 (Letní škola, 2001) (2025, Czech Republic; dir. Dužan Duong)
Sunday, October 12 at 3:30 PM
We’re Okay will be the short film shown before the screening.
For the last several years at Viet Film Fest, there has been an intermittent trickle of Vietnamese Czech short films – never more than one per festival edition. Those previous films painted a rare portrait of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic (the largest in Europe after France and Germany). Making its international premiere at VFF 2025 and marking Dužan Duong’s directorial feature debut, Summer School, 2001 (Letní škola, 2001) is the first feature film in Czech cinema to center Vietnamese characters.
After staying with his grandmother in Vietnam for a decade, seventeen-year-old Kien (Bùi Thế Dương) returns to his parents’ home in the Czech town of Cheb. Instead of a warm welcome, he finds only tension among his family members. Father Dùng (Đoan Hoàng Anh) carries bitterness and desperation; mother Lan (Lê Quỳnh Lan) seems overeager to mend the past and present relations; and younger brother Tài (Tô Tiễn Tài) is uncomfortable sharing his parents’ attention with his elder brother.
As summer marches on, this squall of personal issues and clashing traits threatens to explode in seriocomic ways. The film divides itself into three distinct, interconnected episodes that adopt Dùng, Kien, and Tài’s perspectives (Lan does not have a segment to herself, but her presence is crucial to the film’s concluding moments). Composed of a cast largely made of first-time actors, Duong’s film – in addition to its contributions to Vietnamese Czech depictions in film – asks what masculinity looks like when caught between cultures, familial ties, nations, and public/private selves, and how loved ones can address the irreconcilable.
By Eric Nong
Year of the Cat (2025, United States; dir. Tony Nguyễn)
Saturday, October 11 at 4:00 PM
On Healing Land, Birds Perch will be the short film shown before the screening.
On the eve of his birthday, filmmaker Tony Nguyễn sets out on a personal journey to uncover the mystery of his father – an enigmatic figure kept elusive by his mother’s pain. 1975, the year of the Fall of Saigon and Tony’s birth, is the catalyst for a pilgrimage nearly fifty years later back to his homeland in search of answers. Along the way, he faces emotional challenges and meets guiding figures who help him navigate a resonant exploration of family, history, and masculinity. Year of the Cat offers an intimate portrait of how the legacy of war continues to shape identity and relationships. With inventive camerawork, reflective narration, and meditations on technological intervention, the film draws viewers in and keeps them closely tethered to Tony’s journey from beginning to end.
Oakland-based filmmaker Tony Nguyễn (VFF 2015’s Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory) is known for his documentaries exploring the Vietnamese refugee experience, beginning with his 2011 directorial debut, Enforcing the Silence. In Year of the Cat, Nguyễn turns the camera inward, focusing on a personal story that continues his commitment to overlooked narratives within Vietnamese American communities. The film’s experimental visuals and voiceover blend create an “investigative home movie” feel, inviting audiences to join Nguyễn in asking difficult questions about identity, history, and belonging. Selected for the 2025 editions of Asian American International Film Festival in New York and CAAMFest in the Bay Area, Year of the Cat marks a significant moment in Nguyễn’s evolving body of work.
By Jenn Thảo Nguyễn
The Stringer (2025, United States; dir. Bao Nguyen)
Saturday, October 11 at 7:00 PM
On June 8, 1972, the South Vietnamese Air Force attacked the North Vietnamese-occupied village of Trảng Bàng with napalm. As children fled the scene of the strike, a photojournalist took one of the lasting images of the Vietnam War. That photo, The Terror of War (commonly known as “Napalm Girl”, in reference to then-nine-year-old girl Phan Thị Kim Phúc, who is central in the picture) was quickly published worldwide. It won the Associated Press’ Nick Út the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. In the years after, Út, who fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon, channeled the fame he garnered from the photo into furthering his photojournalism career at the AP and to advocate for peace worldwide.
Bao Nguyen’s The Stringer asks whether the authorship of The Terror of War has been wrong since publication. Nguyen (VFF 2021’s Best Feature winner Be Water), along with his team, investigated these allegations – which began when a former photo editor in the AP’s Saigon bureau reached out to a photo agency, stating that Út did not take the photo. Since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival last January, The Stringer has become a lightning rod of controversy in the world of journalism, including multiple rebuttals from the AP (most recently in May, as of this synopsis’ publication) and a fierce disagreement from Kim Phúc herself.
The Stringer is primarily an examination of journalistic ethics, not a polemic towards Út or the AP. Whatever one believes regarding the authorship of The Terror of War, this is a film that will stoke intense debate and reflection.
By Eric Nong
Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Mưa trên cánh bướm) (2024, Vietnam; dir. Dương Diệu Linh)
Sunday, October 12 at 10:00 AM
Virtual At-Home Screening from October 4 to 19
Middle-aged Tam (Tú Oanh) is a meticulous wedding planner and the primary breadwinner of her household. Yet, beneath her composed exterior, she is overwhelmed by mounting domestic chaos. Her emotionally distant husband (Lê Vũ Long) is publicly exposed for infidelity on live television, and her young daughter Ha (Nguyễn Nam Linh) dreams only of escaping their provincial town for a better future in Europe. As Tam’s carefully constructed family begins to crumble—symbolized by a crack in her bedroom ceiling that starts to leak—she turns to a renowned spell master for help. But instead of reversing her misfortune, a mysterious and unsettling force is unwittingly unleashed and begins to haunt both her home and her family.
Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Mưa trên cánh bướm) premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival as part of the 39th Film Critics’ Week. This debut feature continues director Dương Diệu Linh’s ongoing exploration of women’s lived experiences. It portrays the unspoken wounds embedded in everyday Vietnamese domestic life, conjuring a haunting narrative. Blending realism with surrealism, the film offers a poignant meditation on the interrelationship between gender norms and spiritual unrest. While it captures the repressive realities that women endure, the film is also suffused with moments of feminine fantasy and bittersweet hope. As Dương describes it, the film offers “a glimpse into this female-only universe where love, compassion, conflict, and betrayal are all intertwined.”
By Xiangu Qi
In the Nguyen Kitchen (Dans la cuisine des Nguyen) (2024, France; dir. Stéphane Ly-Cuong)
Sunday, October 12 at 10:00 AM
Conductor’s Crescendo and Out of Time will be the short films shown before the screening.
In the Nguyen Kitchen (Dans la cuisine des Nguyen) is a touching and daring French-Vietnamese musical. It offers a portrayal rarely seen in French cinema: a heroine (Clotilde Chevalier) who escapes exotic stereotypes, who is not defined by a quest for love, who asserts her voice, her choices, her contradictions. It normalizes LGBTQ+ identities, highlights the hope of becoming an artist in the face of a generation of parents who do not always understand our paths, and subtly subverts everyday racist clichés. It is a film filled with humor, music, emotion, and deep tenderness, where mother-daughter tensions, meaningful silences, and gestures of love shared around the kitchen find their full resonance.
Directed by Stéphane Ly-Cuong (VFF 2018’s Spring Leaves, VFF 2019’s Jasmine Lane), this film celebrates transmission, roots, and Vietnamese identity, while honoring powerful women – in front of and behind the camera. Despite efforts to address French cinema’s diversity (with admiration for American cinema’s initiative to do so), it remains rare to see French Asian women starring in a film, let alone carried by a cast and crew composed mainly of people of Asian descent. Asian diasporas in France, long in search of stories they could identify with, responded positively to this film. This film embodies the image of a more inclusive, more just cinema – a cinema where one can dream, exist, and shine.
By Linda Nguon
The Real Sister (Chị Dâu) (2024, Vietnam; dir. Khương Ngọc)
Sunday, October 12 at 12:30 PM
F*ck Feelings will be the short film shown before the screening.
The Real Sister (Chị Dâu) is a gripping family drama set against the backdrop of a storm — both in the sky and within a home.
When five sisters (Việt Hương, Hồng Đào, Lê Khánh, Đinh Y Nhung, and Ngọc Trinh) reunite at their ancestral house for their father’s death anniversary, long-buried resentments begin to surface. At the center is the widowed sister-in-law, the de facto matriarch, who urges the younger women to renovate the decaying family home. But with each sister facing her own turmoil – from financial strain to fractured relationships – no one is willing to take responsibility for a house they no longer consider their own.
As tensions rise, so does a literal storm on the horizon, threatening to destroy the crumbling home once and for all. What begins as a simple reunion quickly spirals into a reckoning: with the past, with each other, and with the fragile ties that hold them together. Will they find common ground before it all falls apart, or is it already too late?
Featuring an all-star female ensemble, The Real Sister, directed by Khương Ngọc, delivers a powerhouse ensemble performance that will make audiences both ache for and recoil from its characters. Secrets unravel, loyalties are tested, and the lines between love and resentment blur in this raw, emotional exploration of sisterhood, sacrifice, and what it really means to call a place, or a person, home.
By Duyen Bui
Việt and Nam (2024, Vietnam; dir. Trương Minh Quý)
Sunday, October 12 at 3:30 PM
Set in the depths of a coal mine in Vietnam, Trương Minh Qúy’s film follows Việt and Nam, two young miners and lovers, during their final days together. As they carry out their physically demanding work, the pair prepare for an impending separation – Việt (Phạm Thanh Hải) is set to leave the country in search of economic opportunity, while Nam (Đào Duy Bảo Định) stays behind. Together, they spend their remaining time searching for traces of Việt’s father believed to be buried beneath the remnants of war. Through moments of intimacy and silence, the film traces their emotional bond as it deepens under the pressure of parting and the lingering specter of unhealed wounds. Names are exchanged, gestures mirrored, and identities blur, offering a portrait of love shaped by labor, memory, and loss.
Trương Minh Qúy’s latest feature, Việt and Nam, premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Queer Palm, and later screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. Shot on 16mm film, the work is deeply atmospheric, favoring still compositions and natural sound over dialogue or music. Influenced by the minimalist style of Robert Bresson, Trương (2019’s The Tree House (Nhà Cây)) crafts a meditative space where history, identity, and displacement quietly unfold. Though banned from screening in Vietnam, Trương’s focus on the nation’s physical and emotional landscapes offers a poetic reflection on how love, memory, and labor intersect under the pressures of globalization and historical trauma. Born in Buôn Ma Thuột, Trương has previously presented work at international festivals including Locarno and Rotterdam.
By Jenn Thảo Nguyễn
From Saigon to Dien Bien Phu (Từ Sài Gòn tới Điện Biên Phủ) (1967, South Vietnam; dir. Lê Mộng Hoàng)
Sunday, October 12 at 4:00 PM
In the sultry, neon-lit underworld of a Saigon nightclub, a covert operation unfolds as the Joint Chiefs of Staff mobilize ARVN troops for a secretive mission to Điện Biên Phủ. Kiều Loan/Chiao Luen (Kiều Chinh), an undercover agent posing as a flight attendant, navigates the city’s nightlife to protect the movement of these troops. Her efforts are challenged by Chin Hsia (Chen Chiao), a Chinese spy raised in Vietnam, whose mission directly opposes her own. As both women’s paths collide, a tense rivalry forms – heightened by their shared connection to Major Ngọc Minh (Lê Qùynh) and the presence of troubled club hostess Lê Hằng (Thẩm Thuý Hằng). What begins as a tale of espionage becomes entangled in emotional and ideological conflict, set against the glamorous backdrop of 1960s Saigon.
From Saigon to Ðiện Biên Phủ is a recently partially restored espionage drama newly digitized from vibrant 35mm Eastmancolor stock, offering a rare glimpse into pre-1975 South Vietnamese cinema. Co-produced with Taiwanese and Hong Kong partners, the film features a notable pan-Asian cast including Kiều Chinh (1993’s The Joy Luck Club, VFF 2007’s Journey from the Fall) and Chen Chiao. This version – found in the basement archives of the My Van Film Studio owners and preserved with the help of the UCLA Film & Television Archive – featured burned-in English and Chinese (in traditional Chinese characters) subtitles, indicating its historical intent for international circulation. As part of the My Van Preservation Project, this screening highlights early regional co-productions and ongoing efforts to revive and preserve the cinematic legacy of Vietnam.
By Jenn Thảo Nguyễn
Let There Be Work (Et le travail fut) (2024, France; dir. Tuong Vi Long Nguyen)
Virtual At-Home Screening from October 4 to 19
Tuong Vi Long Nguyen’s Let There Be Work (Et le travail fut) is a social, political, and poetic documentary that takes us to a little-known part of contemporary Vietnam.. The film follows the unique experience of Officience, a startup based in Saigon, that is attempting a radically different way of organizing work: no bosses, a horizontal, transparent mode of governance where employees collectively set their own salaries – a supposed utopia in constant tension with both global capitalism’s logic and the Communist principles that the Vietnamese governments claims to uphold (multiple times in this film, banners of Hồ Chí Minh’s slogans are shown with a heavy dose of irony).
The film will remind some cinephiles of documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s style – extremely long takes without cuts, languorous pacing, purely observational footage with no outside commentary or narration, scenes of everyday conversations and meetings, and no central subject for the audience to latch any emotions to. Let There Be Work charts individual paths toward collective organization, and the compromises necessary for this white-collar utopia to stand. It highlights global societal issues through a localized experience – in a Vietnam undergoing rapid Westernization and economic growth. Yet, the film retains a universality in the questions it asks. Let There Be Work is a film that speaks to our times, the modern globalized economy’s effects on Vietnam, professional disillusionment, and the hopes – naïve or optimistic, depending on your perspective – of reinventing work in a capitalist society to benefit all.
By Linda Nguon
State of Statelessness (2024, India; dir. Tenzin Tsetan Choklay, Tsering Tashi Gyalthang, Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam, and Sonam Tseten)
Virtual At-Home Screening from October 4 to 19
State of Statelessness is the first Tibetan/Indian submission to Viet Film Fest. It presents four poignant stories that depict the enduring pain of displacement and the complexities of diasporic Tibetan identity. This anthology opens with a father’s retelling of the tale about the Mekong River, a symbolic journey that bridges the cultural distance between homeland and adopted land. In the second story, the cremation of a mother brings together estranged daughters, whose mourning reveals the emotional fractures of a family scattered across borders. The third narrative follows a Tibetan couple recovering from a family tragedy, whose precarious life is further disrupted by a visit from a long-lost school friend returning from America. The final chapter directs attention to a Tibetan American young man. His homecoming – to bring his father’s ashes to Tibet – unearths a buried family secret, which then leads him to reconsider his heritage and belonging.
Created by the Drung Tibetan Filmmakers’ Collective – a group of Tibetan directors working across India, the U.S., and Vietnam – the film not only unveils personal diasporic experiences, but also conveys a collective reflection on migration, memories, loss, and resettlement. Through quiet portrayals of daily life, State of Statelessness embeds Tibetan traditions, myths, and rituals – thangka paintings, religious belief in reincarnation, and sacred death rites – into its narrative fabric, lending the film a contemplative, spiritual atmosphere.
By Xiangu Qi
