The Vietnamesedocumentary Mieng Trau La Dau Cau Chuyen (The Betel Begins theConversation) recently won the funding support from the IDFA, which willalso help fund Vietnam's online short film festival YxineFF.
Directed by Duong Xuan and Bao Nguyen, the feature length documentaryfollows the potential legalisation of same-sex marriage in Vietnamthrough the lives of several gay, lesbian and trans-gender people andtheir families.
The YxineFF, created in 2010, has also been in the spotlight for creating new opportunities for Vietnamese filmmakers.
"This is the first time YxineFF has been supported by a prestigiousorganisation like the IDFA Bertha Fund," said Vu Quynh Ha,representative of YxineFF. "The support is precious to us since we'relaunching a new project focusing on documentaries."
The festival was created in Vietnam in 2010 and has been dedicated to short films made in Vietnam and abroad.
The IDFA Bertha Fund was founded in 1988 with the goal to supportboth documentary filmmakers and organisations that promote documentariesin developing countries to help local filmmakers find their own uniquevoice.
Over the past 15 years, the fund has supported more than 500 projects.
This year, it considered about 330 projects from more than 40countries. A total of 300,000 USD was granted to 13 documentary projectsand five documentary festivals.-VNA