July 13, 2007

A new film wave
A young group of local Vietnamese-Americans has created a cinematic movement, with new movies and a spirit of collaboration.
By RICHARD CHANG
The Orange County Register

It's a hot summer afternoon in Little Saigon, and four promising young Vietnamese-American filmmakers are finishing lunch at Café Picasso, a hangout for local Vietnamese artists and writers.

They tell stories and jokes. They all know each other well. In fact, they've been working with and supporting each other for years.

The foursome – Ham Tran, Charlie Nguyen, Stephane Gauger and Victor Vu – are part of a new cinematic movement, the "Viet film wave" or "Viet wave." Each has written and directed a feature-length movie in the past two years.

A look at the credits reveals that their names are prominently attached to each other's projects. And all four grew up in or currently reside in Orange County – home to the nation's largest Vietnamese-American community.

"There's a young crop of Vietnamese-Americans who majored in film and wanted to be filmmakers," said Gauger, writer and director of "Owl and the Sparrow." The film made its Southern California premiere last month at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where it won the audience award for best narrative feature.

"This year, there are a number of good, quality Vietnamese films, and they have played at festivals," said Gauger, a graduate of Fountain Valley High School and Cal State Fullerton. "There's a little bit of a surge going on."

Indeed, just before "Owl and the Sparrow," Nguyen's "The Rebel" made its world premiere in Irvine at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in April. In May, it closed the L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it also nabbed a grand jury award.

Tran's "Journey From the Fall" started a nationwide theatrical run in March. The heart-wrenching saga about Vietnamese dislocation and re-education camps screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival last year and made its North American premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Vu's "First Morning" won the award for best feature film at the 2005 San Diego Asian Film Festival. His "Spirits" hit the international film-fest circuit in 2004.

"We're close enough to support each other," said Vu, 31, a Fountain Valley resident. "I was very excited when I saw 'The Rebel.' Any kind of success is a stepping stone toward Vietnamese cinema reaching a wider audience."

In many ways, the Viet film wave resembles another cinematic alliance, the "Three Amigos" from Mexico. Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu have each made a splash with recent big-budget films. They're all friends and collaborators, offering advice on screenplays and in the editing room.

The same thing appears to be happening here.

"We're local, so we can help each other back and forth," said Tran, 33, who edited all of his three colleagues' recent works. He grew up in Santa Ana. "In the last few years, we've had growing interest and a growing audience. We have a lot of people supporting the arts now."

Others in the Viet film wave include brothers Timothy Linh and Tony Bui, who created 2001's "Green Dragon" and have produced many projects; Luu Huynh, director of 2006's "The White Silk Dress"; Le Van Kiet, director of 2006's "Dust of Life"; and Doan Hong, director of the 2007 documentary "Oh, Saigon."

There's also a supporting cast and crew who have worked on many of the above projects. Christopher Wong has composed music for many in the Viet film wave; Jenni Trang Le has aided as an assistant director; and regularly appearing actors include Long Nguyen, Johnny Tri Nguyen, Kathy Uyen, Cat Ly, Kathleen Luong and others.

"It's obviously a trend, because all these new films, the majority of them were done by overseas Vietnamese," said Anderson Le, program director for the Hawaii International Film Festival, which last year featured a spotlight on films made by Vietnamese abroad. "A lot of us came to the States right after the fall (of Saigon). We're at an age where we're in our 20s and 30s. Basically we're just looking back, exploring our roots."

NOT AN EASY ROAD

It hasn't always been easy for Vietnamese-American filmmakers. Before the wave, each worked in isolation, hoping to get jobs on other people's projects and dreaming of crafting his or her own masterpiece some day.

Charlie Nguyen worked on Vietnamese music videos. Gauger did lighting for other movies, and the rest were enrolled in college or film school.

For more than a decade, the government of communist Vietnam did not allow foreigners to film motion pictures in their country. A handful of Vietnamese-made films did hit the art-house circuit in the 1980s.

One of the first major features to crack open the door and shoot in Vietnam after the 1975 fall of Saigon was "The Lover" in 1992. Then came "Indochine," a French production starring Catherine Deneuve, later that same year.

"The Scent of Green Papaya" in 1994 was a breakthrough. It was one of the first films made in Vietnam by a Vietnamese director to gain international attention and acclaim. Anh Hung Tran won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and the movie was nominated for an Academy Award (best foreign language film) in 1994.

Tran's subsequent films, "Cyclo" and "Vertical Ray of the Sun," while not box-office blockbusters, did influence a generation of filmmakers to follow, including those in the Viet film wave.

"It inspired me a lot," Gauger said about "Cyclo," a dark story about a young bicycle-taxi driver shot in busy Saigon. "It was raw. It made me feel it was possible to shoot on the streets. He's a masterful visual storyteller."

Gauger shot his movie "Owl and the Sparrow" on the bustling streets of Saigon, using hand-held digital cameras and bouncing around 30 locations in 15 days.

Another influential film was "Three Seasons" (1999), written and directed by Tony Bui and produced by his brother Timothy Linh Bui. That work received nominations and won awards at many film festivals, including the grand jury prize and audience award at the 1999 Sundance film fest.

The Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association started in Orange County in 1991. That group of young artists, writers and friends organized an F.O.B. ("fresh off the boat") show of visual art, performance and poetry in Westminster in 2002. Many of those participants became part of the Viet film wave.

VALAA also collaborated with another nonprofit, VietNamese Language & Culture, to kick off the Vietnamese International Film Festival in October 2003. With their own biannual film festival, local Vietnamese filmmakers now had a place where they could showcase their work, meet casually and collaborate without industry or market forces breathing down their necks.

"ViFF has always been our supporter from the very beginning," said Charlie Nguyen, 39, during an interview in April. "To make 'The Rebel,' we needed a lot of support from peers and friends, and ViFF was the portal through which all of our support came from. It's sort of like a cradle for Vietnamese filmmakers in the community."

HOPE AND PRESSURE AHEAD

The future looks bright for the Viet film wave. The four amigos are all working on future movie projects, including a combined effort with Janet Yang, producer for powerhouse Oliver Stone. Each of the filmmakers aims to tell a different story about Vietnamese survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Nguyen and Gauger have been in discussions with studios to get their respective films picked up and distributed to theatrical audiences. Tran's movie is still playing in selected cities, and he is looking forward to a DVD release in the fall.

In October, the Austin Film Festival will feature a program of several new Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American films.

However, the auteurs in the Viet film wave still face considerable challenges. They remain under the radar as far as major Hollywood studios are concerned, and none of them has an agent yet.

"I think it's a struggle for all of us," Vu said. "The financing stage is really difficult. Trying to get funding is tough. With Vietnamese films, we're targeting a very small demographic."

Gauger, who hopes to continue shooting films in Vietnam and reach out to an international audience, wonders if American production companies may force him to make his work more accessible and marketable. That might mean shooting in English rather than Vietnamese.

Charlie Nguyen also aspires to tell more cinematic stories about Vietnam. He's thinking about making "The Rebel II." But he acknowledges that living in the States causes a cultural barrier, or distance, for him.

"When I try to write, or just to get comfortable with the material, it seems like it's never enough," the Buena Park resident said. "I'm always looking from the outside in, versus someone who's been immersed in it."

Tran worries about piracy. In Vietnam and in some U.S. communities, his movie and the others have been copied illegally and sold on the streets. Unauthorized copies of Tran's film were recently confiscated by the Vietnamese government because of the sensitive subject matter.

Piracy is "the only thing that's standing in the way of the movement," Tran said. After all, movie making is a business, and the filmmakers still need to get paid.

Yet none of them plans to quit anytime soon. "It's passion," Nguyen said. "You want to be a part of it."

"You want to see a change," Tran added. "It's all about that thing Joseph Campbell talked about. I get to follow my bliss."