Bui Xuan Phai Award honours director’s love of Hanoi

Hanoi (VNA) - Film director Tran Van Thuy won the Grand Prize of the 15th Bui Xuan Phai – For Love of Hanoi Awards during a ceremony held at the headquarters of the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) in Hanoi on October 6.

The annual awards, initiated by the VNA’s "The Thao & Van Hoa" (Sports and Culture) newspaper and the family of the late painter Bui Xuan Phai in 2008, aim to honour authors, works, ideas and jobs with high scientific and artistic values inspired by the love for Hanoi. Painter Bui Xuan Phai is a founder of modern art in Vietnam and is famous for his paintings of old Hanoi.

The Grand Prize honours Director Tran Van Thuy for his films about Hanoi such as Ha Noi Trong Mat Ai (Hanoi In Whose Eyes), and Chuyen tu te (The Story of Kindness).

Director Tran Van Thuy is considered an acclaimed Vietnamese documentary film director. Ha Noi Trong Mat Ai, made in 1982, uses historical figures and stories intertwined with the history of the city to reflect citizens’ views on society at the time. The documentary has a scene of painter Bui Xuan Phai with a brush in his hand.

Chuyen tu te, made in 1985, tells stories of human life and fate equally applicable to today’s world. It earned Thuy the Silver Dove award at the Leipzig International Film Festival, and the foreign press called it “the bomb from Vietnam which exploded in the city of Leipzig” in the then East Germany.

Born in 1940 in the northern province of Nam Dinh, Thuy studied cinematography in Vietnam and further at the Moscow Film College. Since 1977, he worked for the Vietnam Central Documentary and Science Film Studio and the Vietnam Cinematography Association.

He has also worked with Britain’s Channel 4 and Japan’s NHK.

The Work Prize was granted to the book ‘Tranh dan gian Kim Hoang’ (Kim Hoang folk painting) by collector Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai, who is also the director of Hanoi Ceramic Museum. The book contributes to preserving and developing the traditional folk painting craft in Kim Hoang village in Hanoi.

The Job Prize went to a project on preserving a nearly 1,000sq.m villa located at 49 Tran Hung Dao street, conducted by the Board for Management of Hoan Kiem Lake and the Hanoi Old Quarter with technical support of experts from the French region Ile-de-France.

The Idea Prize was awarded to a research project to turn the mudflats of the Red River into a cultural and tourist park by the People’s Committee of Hoan Kiem district.

In the framework of the 15th Bui Xuan Phai Awards, the The Thao & Van Hoa newspaper also presented prizes for winners of a photo and video clip contest on Hanoi.

The 15th Bui Xuan Phai Awards organizers received 41 nominations in total and the shortlist was announced on September 21.

The jury panel was chaired by poet Bang Viet, former president of the Hanoi Union of Literature and Arts Associations, and included historian Duong Trung Quoc, architect Hoang Dao Kinh, and veteran journalists.

Born in Kim Hoang village, Van Canh commune, on the outskirts Hanoi’s district of Hoai Duc in 1920, Bui Xuan Phai studied at the Indochina College of Fine Arts from 1941 – 1945 alongside well-known painters Nguyen Sang, Nguyen Tu Nghiem and Duong Bich Lien.

He died in Hanoi on June 24, 1988. He is best known for his paintings of Hanoi's Old Quarter, which document the capital's social changes in the 20th century.

Phai used a variety of materials, including cloth, paper, wooden boards, and canvas./.