Limousine brings jazz-pop to Hanoi

The French quartet Limousine will give a special performance in Hanoi in early 2012, playing the music that has made the band famous.

The jazz artists in the band - Laurent Bardaine, Maxime Depierre, David Aknin, and Frederic Soulard - make poetic use of the pop-rock genre to produce a unique ‘urban’ sound that combines jazz, contemporary, rock, and electro.

Music fans can enjoy the band’s performance at the French Cultural Centre in downtown Hanoi at 8pm on January 12, next year.

Classic Racine play gets bilingual staging

A play with a French and Vietnamese cast will be performed at the Hanoi Opera House on December 14-15 and will then tour France in 2012 and 2013.  

Adromake, written by Jon Fosse in an adaptation from Racine’s L’Andromaque, has been staged by director Jean-Marie Lejude from France’s L’oeil du Tigre troupe.

In this version, four French and four Vietnamese actors speak to each other in their native languages with Vietnamese subtitles.

The performance has been co-organised by the theater, along with the French Cultural Centre L’Espace, the L’oeil du Tigre troupe and the Paul Eluard Theatre.

It will be part of the celebration for the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and France in 2013.

Lejude is accompanied by stage designer Thierry Vareille and assistant director Marine Mane, who have worked with Vietnamese artists over a month.

Last year, the prestigious French director staged La Fontaine Fables for the 50th anniversary of the Theater and Cinema College.

600 entries sent to National Television Festival

Over 600 television works by nearly 100 television production units have been sent to the 31st National Television Festival, which will be held from December 18-21 in the central city of Da Nang, announced the event’s organising board at a press conference on December 12 in Hanoi.

The works reflect the country’s political, socio-economic and cultural achievements as well as other current issues such as eliminating hunger and reducing poverty, combating corruption and the campaign to ‘Study and Follow President Ho Chi Minh’s Moral Example’.

The entries were submitted in eight categories including children’s shows, documentaries and reportage, short reportage, science and educational programmes, dialogues and talks, ethnic language programmes, music programmes and TV movies.

This year, the stage and trailers categories were not included but the dialogues and talks category has returned. Another new feature of the 31st festival is that, in addition to productions from the State-owned studios, it was also open to private studios to enter productions that were broadcast on domestic radio and television stations over the past.

Three symposiums on managing and evaluating the quality of local TV programmes; guidelines for the technical development of television; and co-operation between local television stations and Vietnam Television (VTV), will also be held during the festival.

The event will include an exhibition of television equipment and a photography exhibition on the television sector.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the event will be broadcast live on VTV Channel 1.

‘The numbers’ is link between past and present  

‘The Numbers’ by Le Thanh and Le Hai has opened at Hue Craft Village-Phuong Nam Cultural Center in Hue City, reports VietnamPlus.

The Le Brothers’ exhibition focuses on the link between past and present and includes three works. The first ‘Bowls and chopsticks’ is an installation of 1,945 bowls and chopsticks painted with red lacquer and trimmed with gold. It appears in the setting of 1945, when Vietnam was in the middle of the Autumn Revolution; the picture is full of great happiness, flowers and flags, victorious voices and colors. However, the bowls and chopsticks painted with red lacquer trimmed with gold and the numbers also reminds us of the painful grief engraved in the chronicles of the nation. Therefore, it brings visitors to the world of illusion and the link between the past and the present.

The second work is ‘Dorm beds,’ presenting the memories of student life in double-storey beds in a dormitory. “The bright and beautiful time mostly attached with these wooden lanky beds in most of the boorish and bare dorms. Those are not our missions and values in life. To us, those double-storey beds are the values in our memory and two double-deck beds are painted with red lacquer and trimmed with gold along with dragon and phoenix patterns. They are born in our memory about beauty and the poor hardship of a young age,” said the artists.

The third work is a 59-minute film called ‘Into the sea’ produced by New Space Arts Foundation this year. It is considered a surrealist poem about a hunt for all images that are vaporous. Two individuals in the film are as one falling in line together by multiple forms of presentation such as films, performances and other visual languages.

Via the hunt for the two characters along the sea, tramping on sand dunes or drifting on the sea, visitors will see that each individual can be a copy of another.

The show runs until January 11.
 
‘Spaces and debris’ at L’Espace, Hanoi

An exhibition on new experimental works by Vu Kim Thu and Nguyen Oanh Phi Phi will be hosted at the French Cultural Exchange Center, L’Espace, on Wednesday under the theme of ‘Spaces and debris’.

The two artists’ pieces focus on reflecting spaces of journeys and residential sites that they have experienced. Besides offering viewers meditative spaces via lacquer paintings, Phi Phi also applies an interaction between history of Eastern and Western arts to her works.

Meanwhile, Thu’s works are a series of paintings in white and black under the form of small sculptural assemblies in three-dimensional spaces or in big spaces. The subjects of these pieces are decided by lines inspired by different spaces and residences, the places which she used to visit.

The event runs until January 23 next year at 24 Trang Tien Street in Hanoi.
 
International art show welcomes New Year

The Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations of Hanoi hosted an international art performance at the Hanoi Opera House on Dec. 12 to welcome the New Year 2012.

The show was designed to introduce the image of Hanoi - a city for peace, friendliness and hospitality to international friends and promote solidarity and mutual understanding between Hanoians and people around the world.

Moroccan Ambassador to Vietnam El Houcine Fardani, who is also head of the diplomatic corp., said the event was a chance to enhance mutual understanding between the Vietnamese people and foreign diplomats. It also helped international friends learn about Vietnam’s culture and heritage.

The show featured performances by Russian children as well as singers, dancers and students from the Republic of Korea and Palestine, and Japan.

Former supermodel turns down $2 mln from ex-husband

Former Vietnamese top model Ngoc Thuy has turned down a US$ 2 million worth of real estate from her ex-husband as a settlement to their millions of dollar property dispute, Tien Phong Newspaper reported last Wednesday.

In October, Vietnamese-American millionaire Nguyen Duc An filed a lawsuit against Ngoc Thuy in Ho Chi Minh for allegedly grabbing his US$ 11 million assets he bought in Vietnam in her name.

According to Tien Phong, at a mediation session held on December 6 by a local court in San Jose, California (US), the model and her lawyer at first agreed to An’s offer that she could keep 5 upscale apartments in Avalon Building in downtown Ho Chi Minh.

For the rest of the disputed properties including other luxurious estates, cars, securities, and cash worth VND228 billion (US$10.9 million), Thuy had to set up a trust fund for their two daughters, Nguyen Angelina Dior and Nguyen Valentina Dior, four and three.

The five apartments are estimated to be worth as much as US$ 2 million.

An said he would withdraw his case currently being processed by the Ho Chi Minh City Court if Thuy accepted this proposal. However, on December 7, Thuy changed her mind and turned down her ex-husband’s offer.

Explaining why the properties were not in his name, An once told local media that he did not have Vietnamese citizenship in 2007 after the couple tied the knot and was not allowed to buy real estate in his own name; therefore, he had them registered in Thuy’s name.

The properties include nice upscale apartments on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai street, District 1, 14 pieces of lands and villas in Phan Thiet, a villa in Binh Thanh district, 3 pieces of lands in Vung Tau, 7 cars and cash.

“Though I had asked Thuy to transfer the properties to my company after the divorce, she not only refused to do it but also transferred their ownership to her family members,” he claimed.

Regarding the case, local law practitioners said Thuy was having extra-advantage as it was found out earlier the model never registered for a marriage license with An in Vietnam.

This means the couple’s marriage, which was registered in California (US) in 2006, is not recognized by local law, thus the case will be treated as a common property dispute between two civilians without any marital element involved, which most of the time results in a property division for both of the parties.

As of present, Thuy would have more advantage than her husband in court because all of the disputed properties are in her name.

Students’ cartoon wins big at online film fest

A cartoon named “Duoi Bong Cay” (In the Shade of the Tree) by a group of Vietnamese students won three big prizes at the award ceremony of the Vietnamese online short film festival YxineFF on December 12 at Megastar Paragon Cinema in Ho Chi Minh City.

Made by a group of students from 18 to 28 who call themselves Colory, the 7-minute movie tells a simple but touching story about four characters named Chuot (Mouse), Ech (Frog), Kua (Crab) and Ran (Snake) and their friendship. It won the jury’s award Golden Heart, the audience’s award Red Heart and Best Director for Doan Tran Tuan Anh.

First released on YouTube on May 22, the movie received positive feedback and became a sensation when it reached over 300,000 views after just one week, impressing the audiences with its lively characters, funny plot and lovely dubbed voices.

New Heart, the award given to the film with the most creative concept, went to “Tho Ho” (The bricklayer) directed by Ho Van Hoa.

Green Heart, the award honoring the best documentary on the topic of Sustainable Development was given to “Dat Dai Thuoc Ve Ai” (Who possesses land) directed by Doan Hong Le.

The Fire Heart, the Production Award, went to “Cho Da Di Choi” (Taking rocks for a fun ride) by Tran Ngoc Sang.

“Mot Cuoc Tham Van” (An Interrogation) directed by Trang Nghiem received Best Script for Nghiem Quynh Trang, Best Editor for Dominik Krutský and Best Actress for Truong Que Chi.

Also, Andy Nguyen was awarded Best Cameraman with the movie “The man who was there.”

Launched in May, this year’s event themed “Sharing. Love. Cinema” aims to introduce and showcase new Vietnamese films to the international audience as well as to form a community of filmmakers to strengthen the voice of independent cinema.

It attracted more than 100 entries which were screened online at yxineff.com.