Journey from the Fall wins Best Cinematography
Ham Tran’s boat-people masterpiece Journey from the Fall just won the Best Cinematography award at the Milan International Film Festival. Since it also recently won Audience Award at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, I really hope that distributors start to realize that this is not only a moving human story, but also movie of artistic excellence and possibly earning quite a lot of other awards for the distributor. And yeah, since sooooo many people in SoCal keep on asking me, you might wanna know that the movie is FINALLY showing in Orange County at the Newport Beach Film Festival (end of April) and the Visual Communications Festival in LA early May. Better get your tickets early before they go *poof*. On another note, Le Van Kiet’s Vietnamese gang movie Dust of Life will show in San Jose soon. I am looking forward to see that.
Vietnamese American National Gala in San Francisco
It’s happening in about three weeks: the Vietnamese American National Gala is going to take place in San Francisco early May. This event is usually hosted at the White House in DC, but this year it’s over here in California, so I recommend you guys to go. It’s a great opportunity to meet some of the Vietnamese people that make headlines in this tight-nit community. It’s a very fancy and professionally-organized event. I had a lot of fun going there last time in DC and met many of the people I used to work with throughout my years of involvement. Among they many speakers this year is again CNN anchorwoman Betty Nguyen.
uNAVSA in San Jose in July
We just got back from DH4, VIA-1 and VASCON2, and now Vietnamese students and youths are preparing for the next conference around the corner: uNAVSA-3. Following the first conference in Boston 2004 and Chicago 2005, this year this national VSA conference will take place mid-July... in my own backyard. We expect the usual crowd of some 250 people to attend this conference and are working hard on coming up with the program, and are looking for individual and corporate sponsors.
VietACT simultaneous walkathons in California
VietACT has been very involved in the past months bringing uNAVSA’s Relay Against Trafficking around the country to promote awareness about human trafficking. We are also narrowing down our internship application, and from what I hear, we have had some great and competitive potential interns asking to follow us to Taiwan this fall. Things are doing great, albeit that we are still seeking active leaders who can head other projects with little supervision as we are really only volunteers with full-time jobs (and gesh, there is so much to do). The two biggest things going to happen soon are two simultaneous walkathons in support for VietACT in California. On May 13th, the SoCal team is organizing a huge Walk Against Trafficking in the streets of Little Saigon, while the NorCal team is partnering with the Human Race of Silicon Valley to raise funds and awareness for VietACT. Join me on the NorCal walk or help me fundraise $3000!
Labor strikes and US delegation visit to Vietnam
Other big headliners in the Vietnamese community these days are: Last month some 60,000 workers went on strike in Vietnam and walked out on the streets to demand fair labor practices, a right to a decent pay and improved working conditions, but most importantly a right to strike and form their own union. The reason why this event is so significant and much talked about is that it’s the first time workers across the nation has gotten together in such huge numbers to demand change and challenge the business. US House Speaker Dennis Hastert arrived in Vietnam today for a 3-day visit. Just weeks earlier, US Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, a very vocal human rights activist from Orange County was denied a visa to visit Vietnam on her own for the fourth time by Vietnam’s Foreign Affairs Committee. As she was invited to join Dennis Hastert on the current trip instead, she turned down that invitation as that approved visa came with so many restrictions (not allowing her to meet with anyone else outside of the official government visits) that she might as well just stay in the hotel throughout her entire stay.
Past Vietnamese Buzz entries: March 2006 February 2006 January 2006