Santa Ana, California – July 12th, 2024 – The Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA) is excited to announce a special film screening of the award-winning feature, Actress Wanted (Vai Diễn Đổi Đời), directed by Minh Duc Nguyen. The film was shot entirely in Orange County, California and premiered to a sold out theater at Viet Film Fest 2018. The film won the Best Actor and Best Actress award at the festival. There will be a special Q&A with the cast and crew in attendance after the film screening. This special screening is a part of the VAALA’s “Viet Film Fest Quarterly Showcase”, which aims to highlight outstanding films from the previous editions of Viet Film Fest.
Film Synopsis: Mai (Thien Nguyen) is an aspiring actress frustrated by her inability to land an audition callback. Perusing through the classifieds of a local Vietnamese-American newspaper, she notices a posting for an Actress Wanted. Soon, she auditions for Vu (Long Nguyen; no relation to Thien), a Garden Grove Unified janitor in his late 50s. Vu is seeking someone to reenact ten moments between himself and his late wife, Hong. Unsettled by Vu’s demeanor but desperate for money to pay the rent, Mai is offered the part and accepts. Through these reenactments, Mai learns the details of Vu and Hong’s love – from their first meeting to the tragedy that befell them.
This screening is not suitable for younger audiences due to disturbing imagery and violence.
Event Details:
Date: Sunday, July 21
Time: Red Carpet starting at 2-3PM.
Actress Wanted (Vai Diễn Đổi Đời) Film Screening with Q&A from 3-5PM
Location: The Frida Cinema, 305 E 4th St #100, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Ticket Price: $10
Tickets are also available at the doors upon a first come first serve basis.
Don’t miss this chance to experience Actress Wanted (Vai Diễn Đổi Đời) on the big screen! Join us for a special screening with lead actress Thien Nguyen, lead actor Long Nguyen, director Minh Duc Nguyen, and producer Thien A. Pham in attendance. Tickets are available for purchase at The Frida Cinema box office or online at https://bit.ly/ActressWantedScreening.
For parking info for The Frida Cinema, please click here.
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For more information, please contact:
Corey Linh
Communication Specialist, Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association
About Minh Duc Nguyen: Minh Duc Nguyen was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam. His family immigrated to America in the 1980s and settled in San Jose, California. As a young teenager, Minh loved watching movies. With a small weekly allowance given by his father, every Sunday afternoon Minh would walk to a nearby discount movie theater, where he could watch a movie for the price of $1. He would watch any movie that he could get into and sneak into those that he couldn’t. Later, Minh attended graduate film school at the University of Southern California, where he received the Jeffrey Jones Scholarship for excellence in screenwriting. His debut film Touch won the Audience Choice Award at the 2011 Vietnamese International Film Festival, Best First Feature at the 2011 Santa Rosa International Film Festival, and Special Jury Award at WorldFest Houston 2012. “Young Bay Area filmmaker Minh Duc Nguyen makes a splashy debut with this romantic, deeply moving story,” wrote Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News. Actress Wanted is his second feature film.
About Viet Film Fest:
As the largest international Vietnamese film festival in the diaspora, Viet Film Fest showcases the best creative work by and about Vietnamese people. Our award-winning films have been screened in numerous cities and countries. Viet Film Fest was created in 2003 by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) to celebrate the many stories about Vietnamese people. Now running successfully for over a decade, the festival has attracted thousands of national and international attention for its stunning showcase of shorts and features submitted from many corners of the world, including Australia, Cambodia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, United Kingdom, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.
About The Frida Cinema: The Frida Cinema is a non-profit arthouse movie theater in Santa Ana, California. The theater, named after Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, is located in the 4th Street Market shopping district of the East End neighborhood in Downtown Santa Ana.
About 3388 Films
3388 Films is a production and distribution company with proven experience in more than 20 different markets & languages and specialized in Asian and Southeast Asian media and film content. We are champions of underrepresented and underserved independent and international content creators. Our mission is to create with intention and to connect diverse media & film content to global audiences. Recent distribution titles include MAI, the first Vietnamese film to cross $2M+ at the North America and Europe box office. Our independently produced thriller/horror film Actress Wanted is on the watchlist of “10 of the highest ranked horror films on Amazon Prime Video, according to IMDb.”
About Thien A. Pham (Producer):
Thien is a producer/distributor with experience in more than 20 different languages and markets. He is the founder of 3388 Films, an international production and distribution company specialized in Asian film and media content. As a producer, his recent feature film projects include Actress Wanted, an award-winning thriller/horror genre film that explores the intergenerational diasporic identities, cultural memories and collective trauma of the Vietnamese-American community in Orange County, California. The film was an official selection of the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific FilmFestival, swept lead acting awards at the 2018 Viet Film Fest, the largest international Vietnamese film festival in the world, and is included on IMDb’s watchlist of “10 of the highest ranked horror films on Amazon Prime Video, according to IMDb.” He has been an invited speaker/panelist at industry events globally, including the Festival de Cannes, one of the most internationally recognized film festivals in the world. Thien is an advocate for continual learning and paying it forward and invests his time in teaching editing & filmmaking at local colleges. He also invests time in memory sports and eating his way through new, cultural travel experiences.
About Long Nguyen (Lead Actor):
Long Nguyen is an award winning visual artist and actor. Long is an accomplished artist and has exhibited internationally. Long’s mid-career retrospective exhibition was completed in 2003 at the San Jose Museum of Arts. The retrospective exhibition traveled to the Hillstrom Museum of Art in Minnesota in February of 2005. Long’s paintings are in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Arts, the Oakland Museum of Arts, and the Triton Museum. Among many of his awards, Long was a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Fleishhacker Foundation grant and a two times recipient of the California Art Council grant. As an actor, Long won “Best Actor” Awards in Newport Beach Film Festival for Journey from the Fall (by Ham Tran). Long had supporting roles in the following feature films: Seven Psychopath (by Martin McDonagh), Touch (by Minh Nguyen), Heaven & Earth (by Oliver Stone), Operation Dumbo Drop, Into Thin Air, Green Dragon, and Coyote Waits. He also worked on TV shows like NCIS Los Angeles, Lodge 49. Long is very passionate about his work as an artist and actor. He feels the two disciplines compliment each other. Submerging into a character’s skin is very similar to getting lost in one’s painting.
About Thien Nguyen (Lead Actress):
Thien Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American actress, singer, and songwriter born in San Jose, California. Her feature film debut was in the movie Actress Wanted with award winning director Minh Duc Nguyen (Touch), where she won Best Actress at the 2018 Viet Film Fest. Thien has also had the opportunity to be a part of a few independent projects including a movie musical where she got to show off her singing and guitar skills. Thien was originally a biology major, when one day in a creative writing class, she saw a flyer for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and took her chances and applied. She got accepted and that was where she studied acting, voice, improv, and theater movement. In her free time, Thien enjoys playing piano, guitar, writing poetry, reading, karaoke, traveling, listening to show tunes,eating out at restaurants, and obsessing over chili peppers and spicy food.