Some “rarely seen” creations including short films by Vietnamese filmmakers will be screened at the 39th Tampere Film Festival in Finland next week. The five-day festival (March 4-8) will show 20 Vietnamese films including cartoons, documentaries and features made since 1960 that are not more than 60 minutes long, the National Cinema Bureau said.
Among the movies are the documentary ‘Nhung neo duong cong ly’ (Path to justice) from 2004 reflects the physical and mental pain, which are deeply embedded in victims of Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed by US forces during the war. And the challenging journey to claim justice for those people is ongoing. The feature’s highlight, ‘Sao ban ngay khong co mat trang’ (Why is there no moon in the daytime?) 2004 offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of a Vietnamese couple ostracized as a result of contracting HIV. The Tampere Film Festival’s website notes that the screenings focus “on the awakening tiger of Asia as a film-producing country. We will see a wide spectrum of rarely seen Vietnamese animations, short films, and documentaries from the 1960s to date. The Vietnam War is also strongly present in the newer productions. Naturally it is not the only subject; for example, there is an entire screening of animations by Ngo Manh Lan, the oldest of which is from 1965.”
The Tampere festival is the oldest short film festival in Scandinavia and was held for the first time in 1969.
