Santa Ana, CA (October 20, 2025) – Viet Film Fest 2025, presented by the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA), proudly concludes its 16th edition, celebrating the creativity, diversity, and global reach of Vietnamese cinema. Founded in 2003, Viet Film Fest is the largest international Vietnamese film festival in the diaspora, serving as a vital platform for filmmakers of Vietnamese descent and for stories exploring Vietnamese themes. This year’s festival ran virtually from October 4–19 and in-person at The Frida Cinema in Downtown Santa Ana from October 10–12, connecting audiences locally and globally to Vietnamese storytelling, with over 3,000 attendees participating in-person and online.
The festival opened on October 10 with a dual horror screening of two highly anticipated Vietnamese films: The Ancestral Home (Nhà gia tiên) (dir. Huỳnh Lập), a supernatural family drama exploring modern identity and ancestral tradition, and Detective Kien: The Headless Horror (Thám tử Kiên: Kỳ án không đầu) (dir. Victor Vũ), a 19th-century period mystery blending detective intrigue with folklore.
The Centerpiece Presentation on October 11 featured the West Coast premiere of The Stringer (dir. Bao Nguyen), a documentary revisiting the authorship of the iconic Vietnam War photograph “The Terror of War.”
The festival closed on October 12 with a retrospective screening of From Saigon to Điện Biên Phủ (1967, dir. Lê Mộng Hoàng), a partially restored classic highlighting pre-1975 South Vietnamese cinema and ongoing preservation efforts through the My Van Preservation Project, in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The event featured a special Q&A with lead actress Kiều Chinh.
A major highlight of Viet Film Fest 2025 was High School Students’ Day, held Friday morning on October 10, which welcomed around 660 students from local Orange County high schools. The program provided students with a firsthand experience of Vietnamese cinema and opportunities to engage directly with filmmakers, exploring stories that reflect Vietnamese culture, history, and identity. Meanwhile, the virtual edition, Viet Film Fest at Home, extended the festival’s reach globally.
In keeping with tradition, the festival concluded with the Trống Đồng Awards Reception at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, honoring outstanding contributions to Vietnamese and Vietnamese diasporic cinema. Award winners are announced below.
“Viet Film Fest 2025 has once again shown the power of storytelling to connect communities across generations and continents,” said Ysa Le, Executive Director. “From groundbreaking new films to restored classics and student engagement, this year’s festival celebrated the richness of Vietnamese voices in every form.”
VAALA would like to thank all the filmmakers, volunteers, sponsors, partners, and audiences who made Viet Film Fest 2025 possible. Your support continues to ensure that Vietnamese stories, voices, and creativity reach audiences across generations and around the world.
Check out highlights from Viet Film Fest 2025
Grand Jury Trống Đồng Award for Best Feature
Summer School, 2001, directed by Dužan Dương
Grand Jury Trống Đồng Award for Best Short (tie)
On Healing Land, Birds Perch (Đất lành, chim đậu), directed by Naja Pham Lockwood
Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart,directed by Julian Doan
Year of the Cat,directed by Tony Nguyen
Tú Oanh,from Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Mưa trên cánh bướm)
Tô Tiến Tài,from Summer School, 2001
Audience Choice for Best Feature
Once Upon a Love Story (Ngày xưa có một chuyện tình), directed by Minh Dinh Le Trinh & Summer School, 2001 (Letní škola, 2001), directed by Dužan Duong
Audience Choice for Best Short
Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart, directed by Julian Doan
The Luminary Award
Presented to Dr. Linda Vo at Viet Film Fest 2025 honors her significant impact and leadership in the establishment of the festival. Dr. Vo is a professor and former chair of Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. She was actively involved with Viet Film Fest in advisory and leadership roles. The award recognizes her contributions to amplifying Vietnamese American stories and culture through community engagement, and support of Vietnamese cinema in the diaspora.
For more information and updates about Viet Film Fest, please visit our website at vietfilmfest.com or follow us on social media @vietfilmfest.
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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. Through the universal language of film, Viet Film Fest brings together multiple perspectives to expand the horizons of Vietnamese cinema. Viet Film Fest provides a nurturing environment for artists and the public to engage in open dialogue across borders. As the hub of the Vietnamese movie industry, the festival hosts networking opportunities with prominent directors, media experts, and producers. We are proud to be a central platform for filmmakers of Vietnamese descent to tell their stories the way they want them to be told.
About the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA): VAALA was founded in 1991 by a group of Vietnamese American journalists, artists, and friends to fill a void in the community and provide a space for newly resettled immigrant artists to express themselves. VAALA’s mission is to connect and enrich communities through Vietnamese art and culture. Historically run entirely by volunteers, VAALA is a community-based non-profit organization. Over the years, VAALA has collaborated with diverse community partners to organize numerous cultural and artistic events. VAALA’s four core programs include the annual Viet Film Fest and Viet Book Fest, the Gallery Beyond Walls program featuring art exhibitions, and free art and film workshops for youth, such as Youth in Motion: A Filmmaking Workshop for Emerging Filmmakers.