“Actress Wanted”, which bagged top prizes at the Viet Film Fest 2018, will be screened at cinemas in major cities in Vietnam late this month, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

A scene from “Actress Wanted”

The 83-minute film, directed by Nguyen Duc Minh, tells a story about an aspiring Vietnamese-American actress called Mai.

It stars Thien Nguyen and Long Nguyen, who respectively won Best Lead Actress and Best Lead Actor, at the Viet Film Fest 2018 organized by the Vietnamese-American Arts and Letters Association in California last month. “Actress Wanted” was also nominated for Best Feature Film.

In the film, director Nguyen Duc Minh alternates between tighter shots to imply Mai’s professional frustrations and wider shots during the memory reenactments to suggest artistic freedom and looming dread. 

Shot in Orange County’s Little Saigon and other parts of Garden Grove and Westminster, Nguyen manipulates Orange County’s suburban placidity and stillness into something that fits a thriller movie.

Beyond its thriller/horror confines, “Actress Wanted” provides a glimpse of two Vietnamese-American generations in times of youth and old age.

“Actress Wanted” is the second feature film of director Nguyen Duc Minh, who was born in Nha Trang and is now living in San Jose, California. 

Minh graduated from 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.

“Actress Wanted” will open at cinemas in Hanoi, HCMC and Danang on November 23.

SGT