2014 experimental documentary festival to kick off

Nearly 30 short documentary films by domestic and international filmmakers will be shown at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi during the Mini Docfest 2014, which will officially open on October 29.

At the opening night, ‘Fiction Non Fiction Part I’ film programme will feature Vietnamese short films blurring boundaries between documentary and fiction, and film and video art. The screening will feature Truong Que Chi’s ‘Black Sun’ – a winner at this year’s Oberhausen International Short Film Festival; Nguyen Thuy Tien’s ‘753 Case’ combining documentary with performance; and Ta Minh Duc’s ‘Film No. 1’ mixing narrative and documentary elements. The programme promises to show Hanoi audiences how far out of the documentary conventions our young filmmakers are willing to go.

Illustration photo.

The highlight of the Mini Docfest will be the latest productions from the last DocLab Basic workshop, which will provide an insight into the process of shaping a new generation of independent documentary and experimental filmmakers in Hanoi. These short films, telling stories with diverse styles and voices, continue Doclab’s tradition of exploring and developing diverse film languages.

On the second day of the festival, Osaka-based German filmmaker Werner Penzel – who will be present in Hanoi during the festival to lead a film workshop at Doclab entitled “Haiku Happens” – will screen “Step Across the Border”, an avant-garde black & white 35mm documentary film which won "Best Documentary" at the European Film Awards in 790, based on the life of English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith.

Other films to be screened include ‘Behind the scene’ by Aung NwaiHtway from Myanmar; ‘Where I go’ by Neang Kavich from Cambodia; ‘Another Color Tivi’ by Yovista Ahtajida & Dyantini Adeline from Indonesia.

The festival, highlighting new trends in creative documentaries by young Vietnamese filmmakers, will conclude on November 4.

(Source: nhandan.org.vn)