A scene in "Mot Khu Dat Tot" film which has been nominated in the Berlinale Shorts category at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival(Photo: CGV) HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Mot Khu Dat Tot (BlessedLand) by Vietnamese director Pham Ngoc Lan has been nominated in the BerlinaleShorts category at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, which will beheld in Germany from February 7-17.
Lan’s work is among 24 films from17 countries which will be competing for the Golden and Silver Bear, the AudiShort Film Award, and the “Berlin Short Film Candidate for the European FilmAwards 2019”.
The 19-minute black-and-white filmincludes two stories occurring at the same location 10 years apart.
The story is about a mother andson looking for the father’s tomb at a cemetery. Ten years later, the land hasbeen turned into a golf club where a talk between a rich man and his secretmistress occurs.
The film features People’s ArtistMinh Chau, Hoang Ha, Huy Tien and Thuy Anh.
“The idea for Mot Khu Dat Tot came out of sudden. Ifound a cemetery while searching for background material for my feature film,”said the 33-year-old Lan. He planned to make the long version of his short film Culi Never Cries, with part of it shot inGermany.
His idea won top prize at the2018 CJ Short Film Project, one of the top short film contests in Vietnam. The 200million VND (8,590 USD) prize gave Lan a chance to turn his idea into a film.
Lan of Hanoi graduated from the HanoiUniversity of Architecture, but later followed his passion to make independentfilms.
His first film, The Story of Ones in 2011, wasscreened at numerous film festivals and art museums, such as the New Cinema andContemporary Art - Rencontres Internationales in France, and Tokyo MetropolitanMuseum of Photography in Japan.
In 2016, his film Another City was nominated in theshorts category at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in 2016.
His work, Culi Never Cries, received the Hubert BalsFund for Script Development at the 2017 International Film Festival Rotterdam,and was chosen for the L’Atelier Cinefondation at the 2017 Cannes FilmFestival.-VNS/VNA
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