Archive - 9th Five Flavours Film Festival

Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories

Cha và con và
Vietnam, France, The Netherlands, Germany 2015, 102’
subtitles: Polish and English
director: Dang Di Phan
screenplay: Dang Di Phan
cinematography: K'Linh Nguyen
editing: Julie Bézlau
music: Chapelier Fou
cast: Hai Yen Do Thi, Ha Phong Nguyen, Cong Hoang Le, The Vinh Troung, Quoc Viet Mai, Van Hoang Le, Thien Tu Nguyen, Thanh Truc Nguyen Thi, The Tam Chau
producer: Diep Hoang Nguyen, Paolo Bertolin, Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, Claire Lajoumard
production: DNY Viet Nam Productions, Acrobates Films
language: Vietnamese
colouration: colour

Awards and festivals

Berlin IFF 2015, Hong Kong IFF 2015, Busan IFF 2015, Cinemasia Film Festival 2015, Riviera Maya IFF 2015; Tel Aviv LGBT IFF 2015, Seattle IFF 2015, Moscow IFF 2015, Vancuver IFF

Film description

Vu studies photography in Saigon. By day, he captures the picturesque nooks of the city, by night, he observes the neon world of clubs and dangerous entertainment. He never puts down his camera, which looks like a fashionable retro piece, but in fact is a gift bought for a lot of money by his poor father. The father plans to marry Vu to a girl from the next village, though the son's interests lie closer to his attractive roommate.

Dang Di Pahn shows the Vietnam of the turn of the century – new lifestyles, new aspirations, new freedom, but also the impasse after the reevaluation of social patterns. He plays with contrasts – Vu's father is possessed by a patriarchal obsession of extending his bloodline, while his friends are prepared to undergo sterilization to get money for a new phone. But the aim here is not to make sociological diagnoses. The director is mostly interested with emotions – from lust to frustration, from anxiety to unhampered joy of life. City streets and the jungle surrounding the river Mekong gain metaphorical strength, they become the image of the characters' experiences. Vu's passion for photography is not coincidental, it's reflected in the sensual, highly elaborate visual side of the film.

Jagoda Murczyńska

Dang Di Phan

Born in 1976. Screenwriter and director. After studying at film and drama academy, he worked as an independent filmmaker and professor at the University of Hanoi. His feature debut, "Don’t be Afraid, Bi!" was nominated to Camera d'Or at Cannes IFF, and "Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories" was shown in the main competition at Berlinale.

Filmography:

2005 Sen / Lotus (short)
2006 Khi toi 20 / When I am 20 (short)
2010 Nie bój się, Bi / Bi, dung so! / Don’t be Afraid, Bi!
2014 Ojciec, syn i inne historie / Cha và con và / Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories

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