Owl and the Sparrow is a tiny tale, as low-to-the-ground as the little girl who searches for a family she can call her own. Pham Thi Han, who plays ten-year-old Thuy, describes her character as “down on her luck.” So she runs away from her uncle’s bamboo factory, where her work is never good enough, to the big city. A flower girl on the streets of Saigon, she discovers two other castaway hearts, in a man who takes refuge as a zookeeper (Le The Lu) and a flight attendant (Cat Ly) who’s looking for love.Like a modern-day Pip in Vietnam,…
Browsing: Conversations
I had the pleasure of first viewing Rena’s powerful film, “Once Were Warriors”, at the famous Angelika theatre in the SoHo area of New York City. A theatre known for assisting independent films making its mark in the industry. Many an independent debuted at the Angelika, and viewing the film there gave it a special honor.Embarking upon her professional acting career in the early 1980’s, Rena Owen has risen to become one of the most successful and renowned New Zealand actresses. Born in NZ to a Maori/Welsh father and European mother, Rena’s ascent to fame reached new heights for her…
Bernd Desinger was born in 1962 in Oberhausen, Germany. He studied German language and literature, History, Psychology and Film. Bernd Desinger joined the Goethe-Institute in 1990. After postings in Germany and Athens, Greece, he became deputy director of the Goethe-Institute Toronto. In 2000 he was transferred to the Head Office in Germany, where he was in charge of film and media. In 2002 he became director of the Bonn branch of the Head Office, serving in a parallel capacity as head of the Department of Audiovisual Media. In this position he was responsible for the acquisition and co-production of documentary…
For his fourth feature film, Life Is All About Friends (UNNI), a French/British/Indian co-production of Patou Films, Flying Elephant Films, and Maya Films, writer-director Murali Nair cast four boys in the main roles — Master Ajith, Master Sarath, Master Likhil, and Master Noble. They are all students at Sree Krishna High School where he himself once studied. When the camera takes us to Alathur village, to the film’s location in southern India, we discover the boys pulling pranks on their teachers and classmates, spying on girls, ditching class, and boxing or wrestling at every opportunity. But we also find them…
Pero, the main character in Gravehopping, is an intelligent man in his mid-thirties. He uses his considerable talent as a writer for funeral speeches. These are not mere eulogies for the deceased, since Pero consciously and unconsciously entwines his own perception of past events and his life philosophy into them. He lives in a family house with his sisters Vilma and Ida, his father, and his nephew Johnny. Pero’s neighbour Shooki, Džoni’s father Jagger, and Renata—Pero’s great love—also frequently cross his path. Jan Cvitkovia, director of Gravehopping, was born in 1966 in Slovenia. Jan is an archaeologist, writer, actor, and…
For a portion of his film career, Native American Director/Producer Chris Eyre made his mark in New York City, as a tour de force in the film industry. Originally hailing from Oregon and with his 1995 NYU Tisch School of the Arts Grad Film, entitled, “Tenacity”, it paved the way for his visions to take fruition on a larger scale. With the phenomenal success of “Tenacity” (filmed in New York State) at numerous festivals, including a screening at Sundance, Chris entered the Sundance Institute’s Directing Workshop. Sundance’s prestigious Directors workshop gave rise to Chris’ next project within the program, which…
A contributing writer for The New York Times, James Ulmer’s 20-year journalistic career has included eight years as international editor and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, where he reported from the world’s leading film festivals and markets and supervised a fleet of 35 foreign correspondents. For Premiere magazine, he penned the national columns “James Ulmer’s World View” and “Rank and Bank – The Ulmer Scale.” He has also written for The Los Angeles Times, Variety, Directors Guild Quarterly, Movieline and The Observer in London. Ulmer has been interviewed in numerous national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The Wall…
In “A Kiss on the Nose”, when Chiara’s distant father Romano dies, she is left to try and figure out the man and her own feelings about him. For that, she must go back to the very beginning: her parents’ birth and their first encounter. From fragments of memory and often whimsical reconstructions of events that she did not actually witness, little by little Chiara builds a picture of her father—but she does not have all the pieces yet… Laura Neri, director of “A Kiss on the Nose” was born in Belgium of a Greek mother and an Italian father,…
Bulgarian director Binka Zhelyazkova (born 1923) never shrank from controversy. Educated at Moscow’s prestigious film academy, she clashed with Bulgaria’s commissars and was at the forefront of political cinema under the country’s Communist regime. Intense and passionate about moviemaking as much as about her view of the society she lived in, Binka was ahead of her time. This documentary brings to light the woman behind the camera, and combines scenes from Binka’s films, rare archival footage, and candid interviews with former Bulgarian studio executives and film professionals. Her allegorical and urban dramas examined human rights, artistic freedom and the legitimacy…
“Journey from the Fall” is inspired by the true stories of Vietnamese refugees who fled their land after the fall of Saigon—and those who were forced to stay behind; the film follows one family’s struggle for freedom. Despite his allegiance to the toppled South Vietnamese government, Long Nguyen (as Long Nguyen) decides to remain in Vietnam. Imprisoned in a Communist re-education camp, he urges his family to make the escape by boat without him. His wife Mai (Diem Lien), son Lai (Nguyen Thai Nguyen) and mother Ba Noi (Kieu Chinh) then embark on the arduous ocean voyage in the hope…