Cinema
Cuốc xe đêm
Bùi Thạc Chuyên · 2000
Synopsis
One night, an old cyclo driver and a young colleague share the road and the fares across the sleeping city. Customers get in and out, the streets empty, tiredness sets in, and something passes between the two men that goes unsaid: a way of doing the job, of treating passengers, of keeping one's dignity when one has nothing. Everything happens within one night and a few journeys.
Context
The short film was shot at night in Hanoi, in the streets and without added lighting, by a director who was finishing film school: it was his graduation film. It was selected for the section that the Cannes festival reserves for film schools, and its author has since returned there, with feature films shown at Venice and Shanghai. The cyclo, which he films here as a night trade, was then disappearing from the city, where traffic was shifting to the motorised two-wheeler.
Who it is for
A short film in Vietnamese with subtitles. Nothing to know beforehand, except that the cyclo was then still a subsistence trade in the cities of the North.
Prizes and reception
Third prize at the Cinéfondation in 2000, shared with a Danish film: the first distinction won by a Vietnamese film at Cannes.