Star Nhà Ease: Vietnamese Cinema at Showroom Cinema
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Sheffield’s Showroom present a collection of three Vietnamese films never before seen in the UK this July. The season, Star Nhà Ease: Vietnamese Cinema, aims to introduce UK audiences to the treasures of Vietnamese cinema, while allowing a glimpse into the lives and experiences of Vietnamese people, past and present.
The title “Star Nhà Ease” hints at themes of light, home and emotion, and was chosen by the season co-curators Cường Minh Bá Phạm, Esther Johnson, and Tuyết Vân Huỳnh who felt that it was Vietnamese language was included alongside English as a nod to code-switching—a practice common among duo and multilingual individuals in their daily lives.
The season starts on Friday 26 July with 2022’s Dust & Metal, a work of creative documentary combining archive film, newly shot footage and contemporary music that uses the motorbike, Vietnam’s ubiquitous mode of trasport, as a lens to explore the country. The screening will be followed by a virtual Q&A with director and season co-curator Esther Johnson, Professor in Film and Media Arts at Sheffield Hallam University.
That film is followed on Sunday 28 July by 1974’s The Little Girl of Hanoi, which depicts wartime life in Hanoi under the most intense sustained bombing campaign of the American War in Vietnam. Director Hải Ninh survived the bombing campaign, and cowered to make a film to commemorate the dead, “I consider the film to be a memorial, a wreath to pay tribute to the souls of the dead.”
Ending with a return to a more contemporary Vietnam, Showroom’s film season concludes on Tuesday 30 July with Phuong Thao Tran and Swann Dabus’ 2015 Finding Phong, which follows the challenges of Phong, a young transwoman who moves from rural Vietnam to Hanoi, using excerpts from an intimate video journal to show the complexities of her journey.
The season is presented with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery & supported by Longdan LTD.
