Oh boy, lots of things happening in the Vietnamese community and I am too busy with school and work to blog about it. Heck, I didn’t even promoted UVSA’s Tet Festival last month. Shame on me. The Vietnamese village that they have there is just getting more and more impressive, as this year they even have a replica of the one pillar pagoda in Hanoi. How cool is that? Anyways, let’s get right to the point.
Father Ly and Dissidents Crackdown
Dominating all Vietnamese headlines these past weeks is Vietnam’s recent crackdown on a variety of Vietnamese dissidents. Internationally-known religious leader Father Nguyen Van Ly has been arrested and imprisoned over the last thirty years multiple times by the Vietnamese government for “making anti-government propaganda.” His peaceful, political dissidence has created international attention including Amnesty International designating him as a Prisoner of Conscience and President Clinton’s Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam visiting him in 2000. Well, Father Ly has been arrested last month… yet again. This time, he recently joined a group of other dissidents in signing the Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam (aka Bloc 8406). In addition, Nguyen Van Dai and Thi Cong Nhan, both lawyers and cyber-dissident, were arrested this week as well for posting an article for “right to found a party in Vietnam" for the BBC’s Vietnamese-language website.
Numerous organizations including Reporters Without Borders, and plenty of Vietnamese community organizations are calling for the international community’s attention to Vietnam’s continuous violation of the freedom of the press despite joining WTO and having been removed from the State Department’s Countries of Particular Concerns. Find out if your local VSA or community is joining on this national movement this Sunday, March 11th. Rallis are already planned in cities such as Paris, Oslo, Canberra, Hamburg, Adelaide, San Francisco, Sacramento, Orange County, Toronto, Tokyo and Washington.
Vietnamese Youth Conferences
The 2007 Vietnamese Interacting as One Conference is taking place March 16-18th at Purdue University. Then, just a few weeks afterwards, folks can head directly to Vietnamese-American Student Conference VASCON 3 in Austin, Texas. Co-hosted along with the Vietnamese Professionals Society (yeah, the folks that bring you the VPSKeys), it will be hosted this year in… holy crap, the Austin Convention Center! Then, in the efforts to rebuild the Vietnamese communities hid by Hurriance Katrina, uNAVSA will take place this July 26th - 29th in New Orleans. As with most Vietnamese youth conferences this year, a lot of these organizations are joining hands in the Collective Philanthropy Project. This year, these youth organizations are supporting Catalyst Foundation. Proceeds of the fundraising campaigns will go towards building a school in Vietnam, and selected students will even join the group to Vietnam on their next trip in August 2007.
Ah, and since so many ask: The Fifth International Vietnamese Youth Conference has been postponed to December 2007, and while there has been rumors that it will take place in Thailand, I must add that I don’t even know what the final location yet is. That should give you an idea as to how truthful this rumor could be. All we know is that it will be in Southeast Asia.
Vietnamese Movies Galore
Okay, there is an explosion of Vietnamese movies being released over the next two months. I barely have time to just compile them all, but here’s my attempt in chronological order (and yes, being an independent film fan, I am trying to see them all too):
At the San Jose Cinequest Film Festival
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March 7th: “
The White Silk Dress” directed by Huynh Luu. After slaving for a landlord all their lives, Dau and Gu finally manage to start a family of their own in 1950s Vietnam but soon get caught up in war and a cycle of poverty, losing everything but their faith in Ao Dai the symbol of the loftiness and purity of womanhood.
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March 7th and 9th: In case you haven’t seen “
Pao’s Story” yet as it was touring North America last year, it’ll play again here in San Jose. It’s a story of a Vietnamese pageant discovering her family’s painful secrets in Sapa. The movie has some very nice landscapes of Vietnam (at the Boston screen last year, I found out that the director and the main actress were married, how cute is that?)
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March 11th: Stephen Gauger’s “
Owl and the Sparrow” will serve as the closing film of the San Jose Cinequest Film Festival. It tells the fictional story of a runaway child, a lonely flight attendant, and zoo keeper, and how their lives intertwine in the quest to be loved.
From the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
- March 17th, 21st and 25th: “Oh, Saigon” is a personal documentary by Vietnamese American director Doan Hoang in which she documents her own family's separation during the Fall of Saigon. This film is being preceeded with Hung Nguyen's poetic documentary “Going Home“, btw, so two Vietnamese movies for one price!
- March 18th and 25th: “Footy Legends” is the rugby comedy by Young Australian of the Year Khoa Do, starring his brother Anh Do and some famous Australian rugby players. Yes, for the folks who joined me last year at the Fourth International Vietnamese Youth Conference, it’s the Khoa Do who presented his shorts and movies at the conference, and at whose house we stayed at.
- March 19th and March 24th : “Bolinao 52“. After being in production for this for so long (heck, was that really two years ago, when I organized the San Jose fundraiser for this?), this documentary about the Vietnamese boat people experience in the Philippines is finally getting its world premiere.
- March 23rd and March 30th: “Journey from the Fall“. If you have been reading my blog entries, I you are probably sick and tired of me repeating it again, but I’ll do it anyways: this boat people and reeducation camp drama/experience movie is probably the most touching and finest piece of art I have ever seen, and it’s finally premiering in New York City, San Jose, Westminster, Garden Grove, Dallas, Houston and an array of other cities that I can’t name yet. Please help spread the word, as this is an Oscar-worthy movie that American mainstream need to see.
Then in April 2007, the Vietnamese International Film Festival is back. Yup, the third edition of this conference will take place from April 12th to April 22nd in Irvine again. Among the movies probably will also be Charlie Nguyen’s martial arts movie “The Rebel” (which strikingly has a lot of the same production crew like “Journey from the Fall“).
Whew… that's it. I believe I’ve covered the main talk of town in the Vietnamese community. Well, I suppose, I could also mention that Angelina Jolie is adopting a Vietnamese orphan, but that's stuff for the ever-increasingly popular Vietnamese tabloid Viet Weekly.
Past Vietnamese Buzz entries:
October 2006 September 2006 July 2006 June 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006