VIET AND NAM

Viet and Nam work three hundred metres underground in a coal mine in northern Vietnam. They love each other, and in the narrowness of the shafts and the barracks only a few hours belong to them. Nam wants to leave the country, in a container, hidden, in search of a better life abroad. Before he goes, he sets out with his mother to search for the remains of his father, who fell in the war and whose grave no one knows. “Viet and Nam” by the Vietnamese director Trương Minh Quý (Vietnam, 2024) tells of love, grief and the question of how one makes peace with a past that has no place.

Trương shot on 16mm, giving the film a worn, grainy texture; the impetus came from the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a lorry in Essex in 2019. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2024 and was banned in Vietnam. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2024, in the WCF Berlinale section.

Shown at the 2024 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

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