Need for Lending/Selling Vietnam Film Collection
At 02:03 CH 22/09/2004, you wrote:
Hi--Once again I'm struck by how something that should be easy and useful to us all is so difficult. Does anyone out there know what it would take for us to build a collection of films somewhere that we could loan out to teachers or sell copies of? A few schools have some films, some lend and some don't--but it would be great to create a solid resource for us all. I'm willing to do some work on this, I think, but am not sure I see what trouble I would be asking for.
Advice, suggestions, thoughts very welcome!
Diane
From frdev@mindspring.com Wed Sep 22 13:59:12 2004
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 16:57:51 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Susan Hammond <frdev@mindspring.com>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: need for lending/selling VN film collection
FRD already has some films available (both for sale and for loan) and we could be a site for this type of collection, if of course our funding situation improves and we can keep our doors open a bit longer.
I will at least catalogue what we have and let the list know. It is mainly those films that deal with social issues and some VN war documentary and fictional films, we have films on Laos and Cambodia as well.
Though we also have Nostalgia for the Countryside and the 11 disc series of Song of the South (Dat Phuong Nam, $69 for sale) courtesy of Gerry Herman in Hanoi . Though we have lent out all of our copies if Nostalgia for the Countryside already and our loaner copies of the mini series are also out at the moment.
And if our funding situation does not improve we will have a whole catalog of videos to donate to where ever the collection ends up.
Susan Hammond
Deputy Director
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
355 West 39th Street
New York, NY 10018
Tel: 212-760-9903
Fax: 212-760-9906
Email: shammond@ffrd.org
Website: http:/www.ffrd.org
From dduffy@email.unc.edu Wed Sep 22 18:37:41 2004
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:36:28 -0400
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
This is a great idea, something I have longed for. All of my videos are out on permanent loan, somewhere in North Carolina. A lot of them I can't just go out and buy new copies of. Market mechanisms aren't serving the producers in VN or the demand in the US.
It seems like vsg could do something. We have already shown that we can maintain a useful public resource by voluntary action, coordinated by a library, with modest funding.
Why not add a video resource to our activities? If Diane is willing to make time to write a grant, surely Freeman on the demand side and Ford on the supply side would have good reason to consider it.
But what would we propose exactly? To fund acquisitions and staff time for a central lending collection at a SEASSI university? Fund library staff time to maintain a database of what is available on the market and in other libraries and how to get it? Would we offer films as well as DVDs? Clear up rights issues and advocate for getting works onto DVD?
There are people on the list who must have thought about this a lot more than I have -
Dan Duffy
From m.digregorio@fordfound.org Wed Sep 22 19:54:42 2004
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 19:33:57 -0700
From: Michael DiGregorio <m.digregorio@fordfound.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Dear All,
I am now in discussions with several individuals regarding the possibility of creating a Vietnamese film library - probably ten films to start – that would include both a remastered DVD of the film, subtitled, and a separate documentary on the making of the film in Vietnamese. The primary purpose of this set of films would be to aide in the education of students of film in Vietnam, but the people who have proposed this project also recognize the value of issuing subtitled DVDs as a means of increasing foreign interest in Vietnamese film, both past and present.
There is no guarantee that this project will materialize, but we are hopeful that some consensus can be reached among the various parties holding rights to the films.
Mike
Michael DiGregorio, PhD
Program Officer
Arts & Culture, Education & Scholarship
The Ford Foundation
198 Tran Quang Khai Street, Suites 1502-4
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: 84-4-934-9766
Fax: 84-4-934-9765
From jsw7@columbia.edu Thu Sep 23 05:56:24 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:50:11 -0400
From: Jayne Werner <jsw7@columbia.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Dear Diane,
I have wondered and made some inquiries about this over the years. It seems to me what is needed is a university based Southeast Asia program with an outreach component which can serve as a collection point and rental facility. Cornell has done this in the past for films on Southeast Asia. What is needed is a central distribution point for films on Vietnam, particularly films from Vietnam.
From judithh@u.washington.edu Thu Sep 23 09:28:10 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:26:21 -0700
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Mike,
I prefer your idea of linking to existing film resources - which is something I have already started to do on the page, under Teaching Resources: http://www.lib.washington.edu/southeastasia/vsg/resources.html
Archiving, protecting and distributing film is a complex business, involving technical and legal knowledge. I think we need to leave it to the professionals. We should, however, keep up the pressure to make our needs known to those who are in a position to carry out this work in accordance with professional requirements.
In the meantime, I am encouraged by the number of films that are now available, even through the internet distributors already discussed on this list.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From judithh@u.washington.edu Thu Sep 23 09:40:59 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:39:44 -0700
From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Jayne, Diane etc,
It is true that most of the NRC Centers maintain large media collections. Here at UW we have a fairly good collection of Vietnamese film, donated by various passing film directors. We will certainly lend those locally, and can even ship them. We maintain a list on the Center web site. U Wisconsin has the South/SE Asia Video Archive, which is maintained as part of the library system, and also maintains a web site.
We also have a pretty good collection as part of our library media center. The advantage, in my mind, of keeping the resources there, rather than at the SEA Center office, is that we catalog them onto the OCLC bibliographic database. That way they can be searched by all OCLC member libraries around the world, and can be borrowed by any library.
Judith
Judith A. N. Henchy
Head, Southeast Asia Section
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle WA 98195-2900
From m.digregorio@fordfound.org Thu Sep 23 23:31:06 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:12:00 -0700
From: Michael DiGregorio <m.digregorio@fordfound.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Judith,
I couldn't agree with you more.
I think if we all contribute web links, this should provide enough for those interested in film to follow up on their own.
Mike
Michael DiGregorio, PhD
Program Officer
Arts & Culture, Education & Scholarship
The Ford Foundation
198 Tran Quang Khai Street, Suites 1502-4
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: 84-4-934-9766
Fax: 84-4-934-9765
From m.digregorio@fordfound.org Thu Sep 23 23:46:40 2004
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:22:56 -0700
From: Michael DiGregorio <m.digregorio@fordfound.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Judith,
Here's the Vietnam link for the Wong AV center at the University of Hawaii. http://www.shaps.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/isearch
Mike
Michael DiGregorio, PhD
Program Officer
Arts & Culture, Education & Scholarship
The Ford Foundation
198 Tran Quang Khai Street, Suites 1502-4
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: 84-4-934-9766
Fax: 84-4-934-9765
From m.digregorio@fordfound.org Fri Sep 24 00:25:15 2004
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:04:14 -0700
From: Michael DiGregorio <m.digregorio@fordfound.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Dear All,
I just checked the link to Vietnam Films and it does not work directly. You will need to go to the films list. Click on Southeast Asia, and type Vietnam in the Query box.
http://www.sinclair.hawaii.edu/HTML/wong/filmlist.html
Michael DiGregorio, PhD
Program Officer
Arts & Culture, Education & Scholarship
The Ford Foundation
198 Tran Quang Khai Street, Suites 1502-4
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: 84-4-934-9766
Fax: 84-4-934-9765
From dduffy@email.unc.edu Fri Sep 24 06:06:35 2004
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:03:03 -0400
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Well we have two administrators saying there is no need for a lending library, and three teachers saying there is.
I think that Mike and Judith know about what they know about, and we should continue and even consolidate efforts to make information on the existence and availability of "films" useful.
I think that that Diane and Jayne and me know about what we know about, and we should approach some education-oriented funder for help in addressing an immediate, pressing, enduring demand expressed by the public to researchers.
Freeman is still largely run by people oriented toward the needs and convenience of the public as regards information about Asia. If anyone wants to seek money for an apparently useful project, that's the place to start.
Dan Duffy
From darlenedamm@mac.com Fri Sep 24 06:42:36 2004
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:38:49 -0400
From: Darlene Damm <darlenedamm@mac.com>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Perhaps the Asia Society might be another possibility for housing the collections?
Here is a link to their website on Arts and Culture. http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/index.html Since they are also active in the fields of education and curriculum development they might be a nice match. I can forward a request to the director of their Education programs if anyone thinks it might be worthwhile.
Thanks,
Darlene
From david.biggs@ucr.edu Fri Sep 24 09:26:40 2004
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:26:28 -0700
From: David A Biggs <david.biggs@ucr.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu, judithh@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: need for lending/selling VN film collection
Dan, Darlene, Michael and Group-
A growing cohort of folks here at UC-Riverside are working to build a SE Asian Studies Program with a special emphasis on textual, visual, and performance traditions in the region. There is already a film studies program here, and I think people here might be very interested in developing such a lending library as part of a project. Given the outreach and collections already available at various Centers and libraries, perhaps such a program could focus on more problematic, older prints such as some that may be listed in the new directory to be published in Hanoi? Just a thought... I'll bring it up with the Vietnam and film studies people here...
David Biggs
ps- Thanks to Judith, Michael and others for informing about existing lists, the Ford/TCVHN directory to be published, and lending opportunities at Hawaii and UW. Also about sharing their past experiences with film acquisition. I think I'll still have to go to UCLA to see the Nguyen Quang Sang film on the Plain of Reeds, but other movies like "When the Tenth Month Comes" and "Thuong Nho Dong Que" are available.
From TURNER@holycross.edu Tue Sep 28 03:51:53 2004
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 06:47:37 -0400
From: Karen Turner <TURNER@holycross.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: women film directors
I am new to the list and wanted to comment on the issue of film distribution. I got to know the woman director,Duc Hoan, in Hanoi in the late 90s and have a great interview with her on film for a documentary I am making with a Vietnamese colleague. Duc Hoan died recently and seems to have been something of a local celebrity in Hanoi but her films never deserve mention in the surveys about Vietnamese film that I have read. If anyone knows anything about her most famous film, Obsession (1978) about a NVA deserter, I would like to know. I have VHS versios of several of her films and would like to find a way to get Obsession subtitled and available for teaching. Any advice on any of this would be appreciated. Kaern Turner
From DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu Tue Sep 28 20:33:00 2004
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:31:45 -0400
From: "Wilson, Dean" <DWILSON@gc.cuny.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: women film directors
Dear Karen,
Try sending an email request to Mr Vuong Duc at the Feature Film studio in Hanoi. He's the Vice Director of the studio and a talented filmmaker who knows English. He usually reads the incoming email at this address: hangphimtruyenvn@fpt.vn
Here's the studio website: http://www.vietnammovies.pro.vn/ The links on the lower right have a streaming video presentation of some of the high points of the film history. The end credits are interesting.
All the best,
Dean Wilson
French PhD Program
City University of New York
Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York NY 10017
(212)741-1312
From m.digregorio@fordfound.org Tue Sep 28 21:10:53 2004
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:49:44 -0700
From: Michael DiGregorio <m.digregorio@fordfound.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: women film directors
Dean,
You should add that this website is largely built on Vuong Duc's initiative.
Mike
Michael DiGregorio, PhD
Program Officer
Arts & Culture, Education & Scholarship
The Ford Foundation
198 Tran Quang Khai Street, Suites 1502-4
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: 84-4-934-9766
Fax: 84-4-934-9765
From chvo@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 29 14:15:32 2004
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:14:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: chvo@ucsd.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: New Vnm Am film
Dear list,
For those interested:
Attached is a description of a film by Viet Am film-maker, Victor Vu, which will debut in San Diego next month.
FIRST MORNING by Victor Vu
"Set in Southern California's Vietnamese American community, FIRST MORNING is a powerful story about the pains of war and the equally destructive silences that follow. Director Victor Vu's powerful short film FIRECRACKER hinted at the complexities faced by refugees trying to make new lives in America; with FIRST MORNING, he delves deeper into the struggles of one such family as they cope with a past no one is ready to acknowledge, let alone accept. From the moment they were forced to flee Vietnam, the Nguyens have been a shattered family. Tuan and his troubled father Minh came first while Tuan's mother Kim-Anh and sister Linh remained in endless refugee camps across Southeast Asia. Even after hey are finally reunited, fissures abound from the family's unspoken traumas. Tuan finds himself alienated from his father, while Linh withdraws from everyone.
Along with peers like Tony and Timothy Bui (THREE SEASONS, GREEN DRAGON), Vu makes an important contribution to the growing number of films exploring the lives and issues of the Vietnamese diaspora. Though FIRST MORNING focuses on one family, its exploration of community pain and historical silences speaks loudly in a world still fraught with the specter and legacies of war. "
From DNguyen@KQED.org Wed Sep 29 14:23:33 2004
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:22:00 -0700
From: Nguyen Qui Duc <DNguyen@KQED.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Also by Victor Vu
If you happen to be in San Francisco
SPIRITS (OAN H N)
Dir. Victor Vu (2004, Vietnam/USA, Video, 105mins)
Tuesday, October 5, 7:30pm
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street, San Francisco
Memories and obsessions haunt a struggling writer as he meets two mysterious women--one a spirit, the other harboring her own--in this eerie and chilling ghost story. Set in Vietnam but shot entirely in Southern California, SPIRITS is a karmic parable which uncovers a troubled history between this world and the other. With Katie Luong (Green Dragon) and Tuan Cuong.
Presented by the National Asian American Telcommunications Association
www.naatanet.org
Co-presented by: Association for Viet Arts
In Person: Director Victor Vu
From catharindalpino@earthlink.net Thu Oct 14 18:29:36 2004
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:28:20 -0400
From: catharin dalpino <catharindalpino@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: filmmaker Dang Nhat Minh in upstate New York, east coast
For some reason these sorts of screenings and visits with filmmakers seldom
come to Washington, D.C. For the benefit of those of us trying to keep
Vietnam alive in D.C. academia, can anyone tell me how to obtain videos of
these films, for our own impromptu screenings and use in courses?
Many thanks,
Catharin
From dtsang@lib.uci.edu Thu Oct 14 18:58:50 2004
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:55:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@lib.uci.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Vietnamese videos/dvds
At the risk of repeating myself, Dang Nhat Minh's Nostalgia for Countryside is available from http://www.facets.org
His "When the Tenth Month Returns" is slated for release on DVD soon and should be available at the same site.
Click on "Browse Catalog" on left menu, then click on "Asian Cinema" in the new menu. After you click, a new menu displays. Click on Vietnamese films.
One can also modify a search by Country of Origin.
dan
Daniel C. Tsang
From DNguyen@KQED.org Fri Oct 15 08:30:47 2004
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:29:18 -0700
From: Nguyen Qui Duc <DNguyen@KQED.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: from Wayne Karlin
...not quite in DC:
Viet Nam War and the Iraq War from Other Perspectives:
A discussion with Vietnamese filmmaker Dang Nhat Minh
Many Americans have had their view of the Vietnam war shaped by such films as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, or We Were Soldiers films which focus on the American experience of that war. How did directors who were on the other side of that conflict depict it in their films? At a time when we are again engaged in a conflict seen by many as similar to the Vietnam war such a question is not abstract. It is a question which concerns the need of art and of individuals and of nations--to attempt to see through the perceptions of the Other.
Dang Nhat Minh, one of Vietnam s leading film makers, will visit St. Mary s College on October 28th. He is the first Vietnamese to be awarded the Nikkei Asia Prize (in 1999), and has won three Gold Lotus, four Silver Lotus and many individual prizes at national film festivals. In 2001, he was invited by Phillip Noyce to join him as a second director in The Quiet American. Dang Nhat Minh has made nearly 20 documentary and feature films, and is the former General Secretary of the Viet Nam Cinema Association. As a cameraman in the 1960 s, this filmmaker witnessed and recorded the carnage of the Viet Nam-American war and his work often dwells on the effects of war on the lives of ordinary people. During the program, which will take place at 8:15, in the Campus Center theatre, sections from several of Dang Nhat Minh s films will be shown, and we will engage in a dialogue with him on the themes of war and peace he depicts and the connections between the Viet Nam war and the present war in Iraq.
Dang Nhat Minh will join in a dialogue about those issues with Wayne Karlin, a professor at the College of Southern Maryland who served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, and edits the Curbstone Press Voices from Viet Nam series. Karlin is the author of six novels and a memoir and has co-edited and contributed to an anthology that includes editors, writers and stories from all sides of the war. He co-wrote the script, and appeared in, Song of the Stork, a Vietnamese feature film which won best feature film awards at the Milano and Taormina film festivals.
The dialogue will be moderated and translated by Professor Ho Nguyen.
Dang Nhat Minh has said that Cinema is an art that can make human beings understand each other. What can Dang Nhat Minh as a human being who experienced the Vietnam-American war, and a filmmaker who depicts the costs of war, bring to us now?
Oct 28th, 2004, 8:15 PM, Campus Center, St. Mary s College of Maryland