VietACT Website Weekend
So I moved to San Jose in May 2005, but I think I spent more weekends out of town than actually in town. Well, last weekend was the first weekend in seven weeks that I actually spent time here in the second largest Vietnamese community in California. However, I locked myself up in my apartment with my two cats to work on the new VietACT website. This was a total VietACT weekend (no, not Viet Weekend, that’s the Vietnamese erotic magazine, haha). With the exception of swinging by the Tet Festival in San Jose, going to the gym and having dinner with Boat People documentary Bolinao 52 director Duc Nguyen (who, btw, is finishing up his promising 1-hour documentary this month and producing a feature-length version of this for next year’s Sundance Film Festival at the same time), I was just working non-stop on this much-delayed and long-overdue website revamp that I promised my good friends at VietACT almost a year ago.
While I have made some significant progress this weekend, I think that I need to continue to dedicate all this week and weekend on this before we can go live with this hopefully around Valentine’s Day. Stay tuned…
Journey from the Fall at the Berlin Film Market
Hallo meine Deutschen Freunde: Journey from the Fall/Vượt Sóng ist ein neuer Film über die Vietnamesischen Flüchtlinge die nach dem Vietnamkrieg nach Amerika gezogen sind, um ein neues Leben aufzubauen sowie über das Leben in den Kommunistischen Konzentrationslagern. Der Film ist wirklich sehr rührend, sehr emotionell und sehr traurig, und ich empfehle diesen Film sehr, den viele Leute als einen “Schindler's List“ für die vietnamesische Gemeinde betrachten. Der Film wird am 11. Februar in Berlin gezeigt:
JOURNEY FROM THE FALL
Trailer and more info at: www.journeyfromthefall.com
“At points heartbreaking, at others uplifting, “Journey from the Fall” doesn’t pull any punches”
– FILM THREAT
“It is by turns powerful and effecting and features some wonderful cinematography, along with standout performances…”
– IOFILM
Written and Directed by Ham Tran
Starring
Kieu Chinh (“The Joy Luck Club”, “Green Dragon”),
Long Nguyen (“Heaven and Earth”, “Green Dragon”)
Date Time Location
Sat, Feb. 11 13:30 CinemaxX, Studio 14
Potsdamer Straße 5,
10785 Berlin
Germany
Entrance: Voxstraße
Berlin Contact Info
Nguyen “Wyn” Tran
The Institution
(972) 849.3502 (mobile)
ntran@theinstitution.biz
Dust of Life Update
Le Van Kiet's Vietnamese gang-movie
Dust of Life is based upon a documentary of the same name (some of you might know this documentary as it is often shown at Southern California VSA/VSUs and mentorship programs). The first screening of this feature-length movie will be in mid-March in Orange County and there might be a screening in San Jose a few weeks afterwards, too. Stay tuned for further details.