Films On Vietnam
In France, Trần studied at the prestigious film school École Louis-Lumière and made his graduation project in 1987 by directing a short film named Người thiếu phụ Nam Xương (La Femme Mariée de Nam Xuong). The story was written by Trần himself, inspired from an old Vietnamese folk (Truyền kỳ mạn lục).
After Người thiếu phụ Nam Xương, Trần made another short film - Hòn vọng phu (La Pierre de l'Attente, 1989), before launching the feature film The Scent of Green Papaya (Mùi đu đủ xanh - L'Odeur de la papaye verte, 1993). The Scent of Green Papaya received positive acclamations on style and beautiful shots on Vietnam’s scenery. Until now this film is the only one representative of Vietnamese cinema to be in the short-list nomination for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Scent of Green Papaya’s success helps Trần gain enough fund for the next film Cyclo (Xích Lô). The film tells stories about poor people living in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), filmed at Ho Chi Minh City under the permission of local government. Cyclo is not less successful than The Scent of Green Papaya since it brought to Trần the Golden Lion at 52nd Venice International Film Festival. At the age of 33, Trần was one of the youngest filmmakers to be honored in this film festival. The whole three films were so far financially sponsored by Christophe Rossignon (Lazenecs film company).
After having depicted Ho Chi Minh City, Trần described the life in Hanoi in The Vertical Ray of the Sun (À la verticale de l'été, 2000). The main characters of the film are three sisters who idolize their parents’ family life before the truth is revealed after the mother’s death.
Read more about this topic: Tran Anh Hung
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