YxineFF screens ‘In Focus’ films this week

YxineFF International Online Film Fest 2013 at www.yxineff.com is screening its series of In Focus movies from now until Monday.

The films directed by Malaysian, Filipino, Cambodian and Vietnamese directors are divided into two groups ‘Choose A Life’ and ‘Choose An Angle.’

Choose A Life features a 30-year-old woman who is married to a man who is paralyzed and she is torn between her own instincts in As He Sleeps. We feel compassion for the character behind the tattered portrait in Ong lao ban chuoi.

Choose An Angle features Broken with a distressed middle-aged man chasing peaceful memories. In the Name of Love focuses on how marriage can overcome boundaries of religion and prejudices. Rights of the Dead sees a female filmmaker research the mysterious death of a Malaysian officer. Sign is the journey of survival of a farmer in Yeon-pyeong, Korea. Entablado focuses on the truth behind meretricious political dramas.

Holland Village features Dutch culture in HCMC

A series of cultural activities will be held at the Holland Village event which is scheduled to take place at 23/9 Park in Ho Chi Minh City from November 22-December 1.

The information was released at a briefing on November 5 by Simon Van der Burg, Consul General of the Netherlands to Ho Chi Minh City.

The Dutch diplomat said that the event is part of activities to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and the Netherlands.

Apart from showcasing many houses of Dutch traditional architecture, the event will introduce a 3D photozone, s mini museum and booths selling special products from the Netherlands.

Visitors will have the chance to enjoy art performances and outdoor activities including playing football, planting Tulip flowers, and feeding and milking cows.

Under the framework of the Holland Village event, a series of seminars on agriculture, power energy, water pollution, cost of wastewater treatment, the quality of services and solutions to environmental sanitation will be held with the participation of Vietnamese and Dutch enterprise representatives and experts.

Ministry announces 2014 International Dance Festival

The 2014 Hue International Dance Festival is slated for mid-June 2014 in Hue city, Thua Thien – Hue Province, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The festival, one among many activities on offer at the 2014 Hue Festival, will include the participation of around 20 professional dance troupes from Vietnam and around the world.

The festival is held to promote cultural and artistic co-operation between Vietnam and other countries while offering a good opportunity for Vietnamese dancers to experience the latest trends in international dance.

The event also serves to promote the image of Vietnam’s land, its people and its culture to international friends.

The International Dance Festival will be held triennially to introduce Vietnamese audiences to unique dance performances from different countries and territories in the world.

Russian film week to be held in Hanoi

Russian culture-lovers in Hanoi will have a chance to enjoy the country’s well-known films from November 7-12, according to the Russian Embassy in Vietnam.

The films screened during the six-day event include “Mothers”, “Christmas trees”, “Five brides”, “My boyfriend is an angel”, “White tiger”, and “Spy”.

Free tickets are delivered at the Russian Embassy on De La Thanh street from November 5-11.

The event is part of the “Russian Cultural Days in Vietnam” programme, which is scheduled to take place in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the southern province of Binh Duong between November 11 and 17.

A series of art performances and activities will be held during the week-long programme.

The official opening ceremony for the Russian Cultural Days programme and an art performance will be organised at the Hanoi Opera House on November 12, gathering dozens of Russian artists.

The show will also be performed at the HCM City Opera House on November 15 and the Binh Duong Culture Centre the following day.

The events are organised by Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and its Russian counterpart.

German band to perform in Vietnam

The German band Aufbau West has scheduled four performances in Vietnam—two in Hanoi on November 12 and 16, one in Haiphong on November 14, and one in HCM City on November 19.

Hanoi’s Goethe Institute and Youth Theatre announced the tour at a press briefing in Haiphong on November 5.

The performances are part of the German Festival in Vietnam.

The band’s four young members—Florian Berres, Jendrik Leismann, Martin Kuntze and Sebastian Godde—will perform chart-topping pop-rock hits including “Die Sicher Schlimmste Wahl”, “Vietnam”, and “Lichter Aus”.

The band has also reserved time to meet with Vietnamese students in the cities where they will perform, strengthening Vietnamese-German friendship and understanding.

Movie about Buddha debuts in HCMC

‘Path of Enlightenment’– a film which follows the life of Sakyamuni (Buddha) – directed by Cong Hau under the sponsorship of Hoang Phap Pagoda, on Sunday debuted in HCMC.

The Vietnamese production features the journey of Buddha as he seeks the truth. At the beginning, he leads a miserable life but then changes his journey and heads onto the road of enlightenment. Sakyamuni then comes across clergymen from other religions in India which is home to a number of religions. However, so many people are enlightened by Buddha’s teaching so they follow him. The film has beautiful shots and soft meditation music and English subtitles.

Japanese films to delight local audiences

A selection of eight Japanese movies will be presented widely to Vietnamese audiences when a movie screening programme kicks off this month.

Organised by the Japan Foundation Centre for Cultural Exchange in Viet Nam, the free screening programme will take place in Ha Noi, Da Nang and Vung Tau cities.

The movie programme will feature the 2011 Tokyo Family; a universal story on family relationships, the emotional Star Watching Dog about the bond between a middle-aged man and a dog, and sorrowful epic Rebirth.

Other films to be screened will be the Japan's 2005 Academy Award winning Half a Confession, and historical film The Last Ronin.

The movie Linda Linda Linda; a story about youth, friendship and music, the animation Grave of the Fireflies and comedy Someday, will also be presented to Vietnamese audiences.

In the capital city, cinema goers can enjoy the movies at the National Cinema Centre, 87 Lang Ha Street, from November 13-24.

In Da Nang, the movies will be screened at the Le Do Cinema, 46 Tran Phu Road, from December 6-8.

In Vung Tau, at the Ba Ria Cinema on Cach Mang Thang Tam Road, from December 13-15.

In Ha Noi and Da Nang, the movies will be screened in Japanese with English and Vietnamese subtitles, while in Vung Tau, they will be accompanied with English subtitles and Vietnamese dubbing.

Gala to raise funds for the needy

Well-known singers and dancers will perform at a charity concert this Friday to raise funds for poor women and children in HCM City.

The event, called Giai Dieu Tinh Thuong (Melodies of Compassion), is being organised by the Viet Nam Fatherland Front in HCM City in partnership with Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV9).

Since it first launched in 2001, the annual show has become one of the most popular charity events, attracting local and foreign organisations as well as local and expatriate residents.

Organisers said this year's theme, "Working Together for Poor People", was chosen to encourage more people to contribute to the work.

The artists will sing folk and traditional music, with the highlight of the show being performances by local traditional art troupes like the Bong Sen Traditional Music and Dance Theatre.

Pop stars Thanh Thuy and Cam Ly are among the prominent celebrities performing at the event.

During the 90-minute show, special guests who are beneficiaries of the event will share with the audience the challenges they face in daily life, including work and study.

More than 500 people are expected to attend the concert.

Buu Chi, head of the show's organising board, said, "Many of audience members are close friends of our event for the last 12 years and have spent time and money for poor families in the city."

"Our concerts have raised several hundreds of billions of dong to build and upgrade more than 20,000 houses for poor people and provide over 30,000 scholarships. "

Organisers are hoping this Friday's concert will raise as much as VND30 billion (US$1.4 million).

"Giai Dieu Tinh Thuong is part of community activities supporting poor people launched by local authorities. The event encourages people to come together and work for a better world," said pop singer Thuy of the Military Zone 7 Art Troupe.

"My colleagues and I feel we are making ourselves useful by performing in the concert," she added.

Thuy and her troupe have participated in several community and charity programmes, using their art to encourage people to share more, particularly with disadvantaged women and children.

The concert will be held at 8.30pm on November 8 at the Ho Chi Minh Television Theatre, 14 Dinh Tien Hoang Street, District 1.

It will be broadcast live on HTV9 and VTV4.

For contributions, contact the Viet Nam Fatherland Front in HCM City, 55 Mac Dinh Chi Street, District 1; tel: 08 3824 4848 08 38221 368.

Supermodel Huyen claims second prize

Vietnamese model Dang Vu Dieu Huyen won second prize at the Supermodel International 2013 contest in Bangkok last Saturday.

She was also the only Asian finalist.

The winner was the model representing Bosnia and Herzegovina, while third place went to Finland, fourth to the Czech Republic and fifth to South Africa.

Huyen won the Silver Prize at the Viet Nam Supermodel contest last year.

People's Artist Quang Hai pass away

People's Artist Quang Hai, who was the first person in the country to organise doctoral level programmes in music, passed away on Sunday. He was 79.

Hai, whose real name is Huynh Tan Sy, was born in 1935 in Tan Hoi Commune, Cai Lay District, in Tien Giang Province. He moved to the north in 1954 and was appointed by the government to study in Russia in 1956.

After graduating from the department of symphony orchestra and opera conducting at Leningrad Conservatory (now the St Petersburg Conservatory), Hai became a postgraduate student and received a PhD degree in music theory.

He was director of the Viet Nam Philharmonic Opera and Ballet in Ha Noi from 1970 to 1975, director of the HCM City Conservatory from 1975 to 1997, and then professor in 1991 and People's Artist in 1993.

He also choreographed two operas, one ballet, dozens of symphony programmes and performed many times in Viet Nam.

He composed music for 36 plays, cai luong (renovated opera), television drama, film and dance. He is also the author of 60 scientific works, essays and speeches.

New cultural heritages added to national treasure

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has announced the recognition of an additional eight pieces of national intangible cultural heritage, bringing the total number to 48.

Four of the newly-recognised are from the northwestern mountainous province of Lao Cai. They include the Roong pooc (praying for bumper crops) festival of the Giay ethnic people, the Red Dao people’s Put tong ritual, the silver carving of the Mong people in Sa Pa district, and Chang slaw (the making of paper cut pictures) of the Nung Din people in Muong Khuong district.

The others are the art of Xoe dancing by the Thai ethnic group in the nearby province of Dien Bien, and the Pao dung singing and Cap sac (age-coming) ritual of the Dao people in the northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang.

Meanwhile, the My Long Sea Worshipping Festival, held in My Long Bac and My Long Nam communes and My Long town of Cau Ngang district, the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, is the only representative from the southern region.-

Nearly 50 Lao Cai companies registered for trade fair

The northern border province of Lao Cai will organise 160 pavilions for 46 local businesses - the largest number so far - at the Vietnam-China International Trade Fair that the locality will host from November 13-18.

According to Le Tien Dung, Director of the Lao Cai Trade and Tourism Promotion Agency, Chinese firms have also registered for 200 booths at the fair which will see the participation of more than 20 Vietnamese cities and provinces.

Nearly 500 businesses from home and abroad are expected to join the event, with a total of 700 pavilions, he added.

The stalls will showcase a wide range of products such as handicrafts, machines, chemicals, electrical appliances, seafood, wooden products and materials.

Themed “Cooperation and Friendship for Integration and Development Together”, the event will also focus on strengthening trade connectivity between China and a number of southern provinces of Vietnam.-

Russian film week to be held in Hanoi

Russian culture-lovers in Hanoi will have a chance to enjoy the country’s well-known films from November 7-12, according to the Russian Embassy in Vietnam.

The films screened during the six-day event include “Mothers”, “Christmas trees”, “Five brides”, “My boyfriend is an angel”, “White tiger”, and “Spy”.

Free tickets are delivered at the Russian Embassy on De La Thanh street from November 5-11.

The event is part of the “Russian Cultural Days in Vietnam” programme, which is scheduled to take place in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the southern province of Binh Duong between November 11 and 17.

A series of art performances and activities will be held during the week-long programme.

The official opening ceremony for the Russian Cultural Days programme and an art performance will be organised at Hanoi's Opera House on November 12, gathering dozens of Russian artists.

The show will also be performed at the HCM City Opera House on November 15 and the Binh Duong Culture Centre on the next day.

The events are organised by Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and its Russian counterpart.-

Cao Bang’s ethnic minorities join brocade fest in city

Cao Bang Brocade Festival featuring the diversity of culture of ethnic people from the northern mountainous province of Cao Bang will be held on Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel Saigon in District 1.

Cao Bang-based Craftbelt artisans who come from ethnic groups of Lo Lo, Dao Tien, Dao Do, Nung, Mong Trang and Mong Hoa will introduce their traditional craft products from brocades including interior decoration items, fashion and accessories and art performances featuring songs, dances and unique stories.

This is the first time the artisans have left their homes in numerous villages in the mountainous region to travel 1,500km to get to HCMC for the festival.

Especially, participants to the event can admire the process of making a brocade piece, from twisting threads, weaving, knitting and creating patterns from honey wax.

Additionally, there is a photo exhibition featuring landscapes and people in Cao Bang Province and a food area displaying local specialties like chestnut, honey, che lam (a cake made from sticky rice, honey and ginger) and banh khao (a cake made from sticky rice with pork stuffing).

This is a good chance for local and foreign attendees to experience the culture of ethnic minority people as well as show their support for these talented artisans.

The event’s organizers, Cao Bang Community Development Centre (DECEN), Mystère – Shop and HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Vietnam also seek funds from benefactors to build a communal house for Mong Hoa ethnic women in Quang Lam Commune of Bao Lam District to earn their living from making brocade products.

Last year’s event which also took place at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel Saigon helped raise funds to build a communal house accompanied with a small kindergarten for Dao women and their children in Hoa Tham Commune in Nguyen Binh District.

The festival is among major activities of the project “Improving lives of ethnic minorities in Cao Bang by giving better access to fresh water, environment hygiene and markets for brocade items” conducted by DECEN to promote the locality’s tourism and traditional brocade artworks.

DECEN was the first non-profit organization established in Cao Bang in 2010. So far it has raised over US$1.4 million (around VND28 billion) to develop lives of ethnic minority people in the location.

For further information, contact Ms. Lan, email: lan.nguyen@helvetas.org,

tel 026 385 3263, website: www.decen.org.

The Renaissance Riverside Hotel Saigon is located at 8-15 Ton Duc Thang Street in District 1.

Shyevin S’ng promotes Vietnamese art to the world

Curved hair, white skin, baby face and pretty shape may describe a little Shyevin S’ng, a female artist from Malaysia who is running VinSpace and VinGallery in HCMC’s District 2. When I say running, I mean she has such a passion and work ethic that she is trying her best to promote Vietnamese art to the world.

Growing up in a small fishing village in Malaysia, she started her art at an early age and was always interested in color and lines and after years of creating visual art, she found that she had the deepest connection to teach and paint.

Shyevin came to HCMC seven years ago and started teaching art. The arts, color palettes and sharing time with her students seemed to warm her heart for the days when she realized she was so far from home.

Day by day, Shyevin recognized she’d the day was coming closer to making her dream come true by opening her own arts space. “Everything has come naturally with more and more people and artists coming to my class and encouraging me to fulfill my growing ambition. Finally VinSpace and VinGallery opened in early 2011 as an inevitable as a flower will blossom after it was nourished well” said Shyevin.

Shyevin’s talents are wide-ranging. Not only is she an accomplished artist whose work is collected all over the world, she is also an enthusiastic business woman. Her dream was to create an art studio that would bring creative minds together, and encourage a love and enthusiasm for the arts.

“For sure, I love Vietnamese arts and totally believe in the talents of Vietnamese artists, so that is why I often bring local works to join international art fairs in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand every year. Vietnamese art is perfectly catching up with international art trends and regional level,” she said, adding that, “In the past, the Vietnamese art market was destroyed by pirated violation, but now it is professional and I trust that Vietnamese art market will have a bright future.”

Solo and group exhibitions are held often for both Vietnamese and foreign artists. “But exhibitions are dedicated to local artists as I really want to promote Vietnamese arts,” Shyevin said. Works on show are often in contemporary style but made in varied materials from oil on canvas, lacquer, water color, mixed media and acrylic. “Now the gallery just displays paintings but we will put on show installations and sculptures as well as video arts in the future,” she said. “Our events are also created to provide a platform for the community to have an interactive exchange with artists.”

Along with hosting monthly exhibitions, VinSpace is still a venue for art students, both kids and adults. “Firstly, just foreigners living in District 2 came to the space but now more and more Vietnamese people come to study. So I think that is not only the interaction between art and people but also the interaction between culture to culture and we can call it cultural exchange,” Shyevin said. The space’s instructors are painter Ignacio de Grado from Madrid, Kelly a Vietnamese-American artist and visual cultural writer, French-Vietnamese visual artist Sandrine Llouquet, Silvia Graciliano from Brazil, Alex Huy Dang is a Vietnamese-Belgian /American fashion designer, stylist and cosmetologist and Shyevin.

Vin Space is a boutique art studio that provides a variety of art workshops and activities for adults and children.

VinSpace and VinGallery is located at 4 Le Van Mien Street, Thao Dien in District 2.

‘Right Fiction’ seen in light and culture experimentation

‘Right Fiction’ – a group exhibition featuring painting, photography, installation and video by Nguyen Hong Ngoc and Phan Thao Nguyen that concludes their time with ‘San Art Laboratory: Session Three’ will take place at San Art on Thursday.

‘San Art Laboratory’ is an arts residency program that runs in six-month sessions. For each session its board of multi-national cross-disciplinary advisors, through an Open Call process, selects young Vietnamese artists. The Laboratory participants become full-time resident artists at its studio and accommodation facility in HCMC. They are given the opportunity to invite established creative thinkers (artists, architects, writers) to become their ‘talking partners’, who will provide them with critique and guidance during their residency. The aim of ‘San Art Laboratory’ is to allow artists to explore and practice their art without the usual commercial pressures and resource constraints.

‘Session Three’ has been a dynamic experimentation space for Ngoc and Nguyen since June 2013, where the artists have conducted scientific and cultural research that informed their individual artistic process in intriguing and profound ways.

Ngoc, a fresh art critique graduate from Hanoi Fine Arts University, will show a broad interest in concepts of light, embarking on finding a more methodic approach to working with her creativity. To her, the symbol of light reminded her that it is the innermost experiences that define how one sees the world and to immerse the audience in mental and bodily experiences that are both captivating and provoking, Hong Ngoc’s works revive basic questions about a human’s visibility and vision, knowledge and faith, known and unknown.

Nguyen returned to Vietnam this year after finishing an MFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and she has a long-standing fascination with how objects and materials are related and tell stories. During her time at the lab, she further explored the idea that all personal perceptions are fictional, a perspective crystallized from her earlier inability to create works that could adequately recount someone else’s story. Via the move of looking at the history of a material such as jute, the repetition of a habit such as showing respect through bowing, or the displacement of a plant’s typical environment where jute is grown in an exhibition hall instead of on a field she constructs new realities and experimentations of culture, then forces the audience to re-examine the meaning and nature of the social and psychological phenomena that are often taken for granted.

Works will be on view until January 24 at San Art, 3 Me Linh Street in Binh Thanh District.

Guest lecture on originality/creativity for artists

‘Reviving and Nourishing Material Culture for Creative Purpose’ workshop held by lecturer Truong Thi Kim Chuyen takes place at RMIT in District 3 as part of the Encounter program on Friday.

Chuyen’s lecture will focus on originality and creativity which are crucial attributes that encourage establishment and development of a locality’s material culture.

Chuyen will through analysis of a particular material – for example a piece of rare black silk from Tan Chau, An Giang Province – discuss how to maintain and renew tradition by examining the crucial relationship between location, community, material and creative reality.

She considers the challenges in nourishing and reviving local material culture in the context of a society where there is strong interest in imported products. She will provide an example of how to nurture and sustain creative innovation in cultural materials and objects in order to encourage learning of their meaning and appropriation in modern life.

Encounter – a three-year cultural lecture series initiated by San Art and presented in partnership with the Tri Viet Centre for Social and Educational Research in HCMC –

forms part of a larger artistic program called ‘Conscious Realities’ that is sponsored by a Network Partnership between the Prince Claus Fund and San Art.

Encounter will showcase eight creative thinkers who will discuss contemporary developments in art, cultural theory, geography, political and social science, history, architecture, literature, music, film or new media.

Chuyen is senior lecturer in Geography at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in HCMC. She has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University (2001-2002), Fulbright scholar at California State University Fullerton (2005) and an exchange scholar at Millikin University (2007) in Illinois. She is the author of several papers and chapters on sustainable development and social issues in Vietnam and is a specialist in Geography and Development Studies.

Chuyen’s workshop takes place at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at Room 5.2.02/03, RMIT, Pham Ngoc Thach campus at 21 Pham Ngoc Thach Street in District 3.

Berlin artists’ capital gig for Wagner anniversary

German duo Mezzo-soprano Katharina Padrok and pianist Boris Schonleber will perform at the Hanoi Goethe Institute at 8 p.m. on November 10 to celebrate the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner (1813-1883).

Audiences will be thrilled with Wagner classics including Songs of Wesendonck, The Angel, Keep Still, In the Glasshouse, Pain and Dreams; songs of Franz Liszt such as Sonetto del Petrarca Nr. 47, Piano solo, The three gypsies, Joy-filled and woebegone, There was a king in Thule, Over the mountains silence and Richard Strauss’ All my thoughts, I carry my love, The night and All soul’s day.

Padrok studied violin at the Hannover Conservatory of Music and vocal pedagogy and school music at the University of Fine Arts Berlin. Her solo repertoire is multisided and contains a variety of song programs, contemporary music and Tango songs from Astor Piazolla, which she has adapted and restaged in a fascinating manner. Padrok is also a vocals tutor at the Frankfurt Conservatory of Music and University of Arts and Music Büdingen.

Schonleber is a freelance pianist in Berlin. He has studied with Alexander Malter and passed his Performers Diploma at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) with distinction. Schonleber acts as piano soloist, vocal accompanist and chamber musician in Germany.

In addition to the concert both artists will arrange a master class for students of the National Academy of Music who study vocals from November 11 to 15.

Admission is free. The Hanoi Institute is located at 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street.

Source: VOV/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/Dantri