Cinema
Gánh xiếc rong
Việt Linh · 1988
Synopsis
A circus troupe from Hanoi settles in a village in the Central Highlands. The owner notices that these starving people possess gold, makes them pay for admission in gold and lets them believe that his conjuring tricks are marvels. The villagers leave the fields to look for metal and pay for their seats, a local boy becomes attached to the girl of the act, and the lie takes hold of a village that already had nothing.
Context
The screenplay is by Phạm Thùy Nhân, who had titled it “Trò ảo thuật”; two men had turned it down before the Giải Phóng studio entrusted it to this woman director. Location scouting took place in 1987 in the mountains of Phước Đại, in Bắc Ái. Once completed, the film remained shelved for two years: the commission demanded changes, a deputy minister took up its defence, and it was released only in 1990, the year the national festival honoured it.
Who it is for
Seventy-six minutes, in subtitled Vietnamese. Nothing to know beforehand, except that đổi mới had just loosened state commissioning and that misery could be shown without being corrected.
Prizes and reception
Silver Lotus and prize for direction at the ninth national event, in 1990, where no Golden Lotus for fiction was awarded; grand prize at Fribourg in 1992.