Vietnamese Language and Culture (VNLC) in collaboration with
Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA)
proudly presents
Cinema Symposium 4
“Filmmaking: the good, the bad, the Ugly”
Sunday April 13, 2008 at 2:30p.m.
Northwest Auditorium, UCLA
370 De Neve Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90095
www.vnlc.org www.vaala.org www.VietFilmFest.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mai Le Hong (408) 705-7485
Helena Hue Tran (714) 260-2308
FOURTH BIENNIEL CINEMA SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATES VIETNAMESE AMERICAN FILMMAKING on UCLA CAMPUS
Los Angeles, Calif. – UCLA’s Vietnamese Language and Culture (VNLC) and the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA) partner up to present the fourth biennial Cinema Symposium titled “Filmmaking: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly,” featuring nine distinguished guest panelists who have contributed in raising the recent Viet Film Wave. Cinema Symposium 4 will be held on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at Northwest Auditorium on the UCLA campus. Admission is free and open to the public.
The distinguished guest panelists include: Timothy Linh Bui (Writer/Director/Producer, “Powder Blue”, “Green Dragon”), Elyse Dinh (Actress, “Green Dragon”, “Running in Tall Grasses”), Abraham Ferrer (Exhibitions Director, Visual Communications), Stephane Gauger (Writer/Director/Producer, “Owl and the Sparrow”), Elisabeth Huynh (Fox Film Acquisitions), David Ngo (Director, “The Queen from Virginia: The Jackie Bong Wright Story”), Ham Tran (Writer/Director/Producer, “Journey from the Fall”), Bao Tranchi (Costume Designer, “Journey from the Fall”, “America's Next Top Model” Cycle 7, “Charlie’s Angels”), and Christopher Wong (Composer, “Journey from the Fall”, “The Rebel”).
This multi-dimensional panel will offer different angles on both artistic as well as business aspects of filmmaking. Cinema Symposium 4 sets on the theme “Filmmaking: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” to focus on the conflicts that artists encounter and eventually resolve them creating valuable contents for the cinema industry and Vietnamese American community. Each panelist will share with the audience his/her own challenges as well as achievements through his/her career pathway. The panel discussion will open up for audience members to dialogue with the panelists. Clips from some of the newest works will be shown at the event.
Cinema Symposium was created in 2002 by VAALA and VNLC and held every other year at UCLA to create a network between Vietnamese American professionals working in the film industry and students with an interest in film and the Vietnamese culture. The Cinema Symposium is held alternating between the bi-annual Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF). It seeks to promote works that are by or about Vietnamese Americans. The event also highlights the achievements of professionals in front of and behind the camera. Their accomplishments in this highly competitive industry help pave the way for other Vietnamese Americans and are an inspiration to many in the community at large.
The program of the event is as the following:
INTRODUCTION - Ysa Le & Mai Le Hong
PANEL DISCUSSION with showcase of film clips: 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
The panel discussion is moderated by Helena Hue Tran and Hong Van Nguyen.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS of short films followed by Q&A
“Break-up Therapy” by David Ngo
A documentary that tells one amazing break-up story through the combination of several true stories from real-life people
“Oh, Mommy!” (“Mẹ Ơi!”) by Jenni Trang Le
This is a journey of a Baby Quail to find courage, warmth and… his mommy.
“Spray It, Don’t Say It” (“Nhu Cầu Vẽ Bậy”) by Tuan Andrew Nguyen in collaboration with Ha Thuc Phu Nam
A documentary that explores the underground graffiti scene and the main characters that make up this first generation of graffiti artists in Viet Nam.
For more information please contact
UCLA Office of Residential Life
UCLA Campus Programs Committee of the Program Activities Board
Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California
Cheers,
Helena Hue Tran
Mai Le Hong
Hong Van Nguyen
Cinema Symposium 4 Directors
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TIMOTHY LINH BUI
Writer/Director/Producer
Bui co-produced and co-wrote Three Seasons, a triple award winner at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. It is the first film to win both the Grand Jury and the Audience Award in festival history as well as the Cinematography Award. The film was also in official competition at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. Three Seasons was the first American film to shoot entirely in Vietnam; features Harvey Keitel, and released theatrically by USA films/ October Films.
In 2000, Bui made his directorial debut with Green Dragon starring Patrick Swayze and Forest Whitaker who also serves as executive producer. The film made its world premier at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival in the Dramatic Competition. It is the recipient of the 2001 Humanitas Prize Award, and the 2001 Austin Film Festival Audience Award. It was theatrically released in 2002.
In 2004, Bui produced Inside Out starring Kate Walsh, Eriq La Salle, and Steven Weber ; had its world premier at CineVegas 2005 and is distributed domestically by Anchor Bay Entertainment in June 2007.
In 2006, Bui Executive Produced Owl and the Sparrow, a feature film set in Vietnam about an orphan girl who plays matchmaker to a flight attendant and a lonely zoo keeper. The film world premiered at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival and received the Audience Award Best Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles International Film Festival and a nominee for the Spirit Awards 2008.
Bui is currently in post-production on Powder Blue; a film he wrote and directed about four lost souls in search of love and miracles within the underbelly of Los Angeles. The film stars Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta, Lisa Kudrow, Kris Kristofferson, Eddie Redmayne and Patrick Swayze.
Bui is attached to direct Light of Fallen Stars, based upon the novel by J. Robert Lennon with GreeneStreet Films in the fall of 2008.
Bui is a staff-teacher of Freshi Filmworks, a non-profit organization dedicated to
teaching under privileged children filmmaking as a way to bridge cultural differences around the world. |
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ELYSE DINH
Actress
Dinh’s love for the movies began when she was a four-year-old in Sai Gon, Viet Nam. Her mother took her to see Love Story at the Rex movie theater. She sobbed at the end and asked her mother to take her to see it again the very next day. She decided then she wanted to make people cry when she grew up.
Dinh has been acting for about 16 years and has done film, TV, theater and voiceover work. Her film and TV credits include Green Dragon, Running in Tall Grasses, ER, October Road, JAG, Boston Public, Strong Medicine and Spider-Man 2, for which she was put on her own trading card. |
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STEPHANE GAUGER
Writer/Director/Producer
Born in Saigon, raised in Orange County, California, Gauger received a B.A. degree in theatre and French literature. He subsequently worked in the camera and lighting departments on independent films in the U.S. and Southeast Asia, including Sundance winner Three Seasons, all the while honing his writing and directing craft on short narrative and documentary films.
Owl and the Sparrow, his feature debut received nine awards at film festivals in 2007, including the audience award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and best narrative feature at the Asian Film Festivals of San Francisco, San Diego, and Dallas. He was nominated for Breakthrough director at New York’s Gotham awards as well as the John Cassavetes awards at the Independent Spirit Awards. He is now in post-production on Vietnam Overtures, a documentary on Vietnam’s classical music scene. |
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ABRAHAM FERRER
Exhibitions Director
Visual Communications
Abraham Ferrer is the Exhibitions Director at Visual Communications, a Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American media arts center. Since 1988, he has served as the co-director of The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; and has additionally curated numerous film and video screening programs as part of Visual Communications’ ongoing screening series, Remapping L.A.
He has also programmed screening series in collaboration with various community arts organizations and institutions including the American Film Institute, the Black Gallery, the Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Japanese American National Museum, the L.A. Festival, L.A. Freewaves, the Museum of Contemporary Art, UCLA Film & Television Archive, William Grant Still Art Center, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Ferrer has also served as a program consultant for international film festivals including the Cinemanila International Film Festival, Cinemasia Asian Film Festival, Short Shorts Film Festival, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Singapore International Film Festival, and has written extensively on issues relevant to the development of Asian American cinema.
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ELISABETH HUYNH
Fox Film Acquisition
Huynh has a B.A. in Telecommunications with a focus on Journalism from Michigan State University . Her journalism studies continued abroad in the Reporting in London summer program. She also wrote for the University’s Women’s Resource Center monthly newsletter.
She served two years as president of the Vietnamese Student Association. She was also an active member in the Asian Pacific American Student Organization and the Asian American Journalists Association.
Prior to joining Fox, Huynh worked as a news producer for Good Morning Las Vegas. Before this, she produced the Ten o’clock news for Fox news affiliate WSYM-TV in Lansing , Michigan.
Huynh joined the Acquisitions Department of Twentieth Century Fox Filmed Entertainment during the growing success of the studio's acquired films Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State in 2004. She assists the Head of Worldwide Acquisitions Tony Safford and plays an integral role in independent film festival relations, preparation and coordination for Fox. The department services film acquisitions for domestic and international, including Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic. Recent acquisitions include Waitress, Little Miss Sunshine, Thank You for Smoking, and this year’s Oscar-winner for Best Original Song, Once. |
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DAVID NGO
Writer/Director
Ngo is an award-winning writer/director. His first independent feature, The Queen from Virginia, received the Best Documentary Feature Jury Prize at the 2006 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Overall, Ngo's films have appeared in over eight film festivals nationwide. In 2007, his short film BPS was named a Top 10 finalist at the 4th Annual 72 Hour Shootout. Also in 2007, Ngo was awarded with the Armed with a Camera Fellowship through Visual Communications, the premier Asian Pacific media arts center in the United States . Ngo is also a past honoree of Film Independent’s Project:Involve, a select mentorship program for young filmmakers. A freelance writer, Ngo has been published in “NHA Magazine,” “Hyphen Magazine,” “Yolk,” and “BN Magazine.” In addition to his writing and filmmaking career, Ngo has over eight years of experience as a television programming executive.
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HAM TRAN
Writer/Producer /Director
Born in Vietnam, the youngest of first generation ethnic Chinese Vietnamese parents, Tran immigrated to America in 1982 as a refugee. A product of assimilation, Tran graduated from UCLA with a BA in English Literature, through what he considers a process of institutionalized amnesia. His works in poetry, prose, playwriting, and film are a reflection of his process to regain lost memories. His first two short films, The Prescription (1999) and pomegranate (2000) were both semi-finalists for the Student Academy Awards. Tran graduated with an MFA from the UCLA School of Film and Television. His thesis film, The Anniversary (2003) won over 30 international film festival awards, and was short-listed as Best Live Action Short for the 2004 Academy Awards. His first feature film, Journey From the Fall (2006), was widely received by critics when it was released theatrically in 2007. Journey from the Fall has won over 16 international awards, and is currently available on DVD.
In 2007, Tran edited two feature films, The Rebel and Owl and Sparrow, the latter of which Tran also Executive Produced. 2007 also saw the release of Oh Saigon!, a feature-length documentary that Tran served as an associate producer as well as a videographer. These films, along with Journey From the Fall are part of a new Vietnamese filmmaking movement, called “The Viet Wave”.
Tran is currently working on his next feature film, Distant Country, based on the outrageously true story of two Vietnamese illegal immigrants whose dreams of reaching the United States took them on a journey around the world. In addition, he is also making a documentary film, tentatively titled, Sponsored‘75, which traces the lives of 10 Vietnamese families who were from the very first wave of Vietnamese refugees sponsored to America in 1975 and their American sponsors. It is an examination of the reversals of fortune in the slippery toss of the coin of the American Dream. |
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BAO TRANCHI
Costume Designer
Tranchi is a Costume and Fashion Designer. Tranchi graduated from Otis College of Art & Design at the top of her class and immediately upon graduation, was offered a Designer job at Anne Klein in New York or work on Queen of the Damned, as the illustrator and assistant to Academy award nominated Costume Designer Arianne Phillips. Bao took the costume job and became the youngest person ever admitted into the Costume Designer's Guild. From there, she went on to work on other productions such as Charlie's Angels, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, The Madonna Drown World Tour, music video styling for Janet Jackson, Destiny's Child (with directors such as Joseph Kahn and Jonas Akerland).
Her first magazine photo shoot was for Rolling Stone Magazine with Mark Seliger shooting Leonardo DiCaprio. Her self named clothing label has been worn by Steven Tyler, James McAvoy, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Alba, Brittany Murphy, Salma Hayek, Naomi Watts, Paris Hilton, and Courtney Cox. Tranchi also designed and produced the wardrobe for Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" and "Hazel Eyes" 2005-6 World Tours as well as her video for "Behind these Hazel Eyes." Tranchi is also the Costume Designer for Ham Tran's Journey from the Fall. In 2006, Tranchi was handpicked by Tyra Banks to be a guest judge on Cycle 7 of America 's Next Top Model.
In 2007, she was handpicked to be one of 13 life size cutouts at the first Vietnamese American historical exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington DC for her work in Fashion and Costume. Tranchi will be the Costume Designer for Dustin Nguyen's upcoming directorial debut feature Monk on Fire.
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CHRISTOPHER WONG
Music Composer
Christopher Wong has established himself as a composer of choice among the rising generation of Asian American film directors. While attending UCLA, he studied music theory under Roger Bourland and composition under Paul Reale. Wong’s interest in film music began late in college when he was selected by the music department to study privately under Academy Award winner Jerry Goldsmith.
Influential to his early career was his score for Ham Tran’s UCLA thesis film The Anniversary, which won Best Short Film at twenty-five international film festivals and was a semi-finalist for the 2004 Academy Awards. This led to scoring assignments on feature films First Morning and Spirits by director Victor Vu. Ham Tran and Christopher Wong collaborated again for Tran’s debut feature film, Journey from the Fall. The film received standing ovations at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, while the score was hailed as “evocative” (Los Angeles Times) and “monumental” (New York Times). In early 2007, Wong worked on Charlie Nguyen’s action feature The Rebel, which will be distributed by The Weinstein Company.
Wong is active not only in film but also in theater and the concert hall. The UC Irvine Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of maestro Stephen Tucker, performed his composition for full orchestra, Local Motion. Wong is currently developing a new musical theater production with long time collaborator Weiko Lin, an Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship finalist.
Wong resides in West Los Angeles with his wife Holley. |
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