A collection of cinematic landmarks from Vietnam was showcased at Metrograph, New York in October 2025, guest programmed by Minh Nguyen. The series is presented in partnership with the Vietnam Film Institute to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the 30th anniversary of US-Vietnam diplomatic normalization.
“In 1953, Ho Chi Minh’s socialist film decree officially launched the modern Vietnamese film industry, spurring prolific creations across newsreels, documentaries, action films, dramas, and children’s animations. While these works contained themes consistent with socialist cinema worldwide—actively engaging in dialogue with internationalist movements—they possessed a distinctive aesthetic quality. Drawing on the country’s deep-rooted traditions in poetic and dramatic arts, these films expressed the values of socialism, liberation, endurance, vengeance, and love through lyrical realism and intimate relationships. The Party even had a term for this approach: “lãng mạn cách mạng,” or revolutionary romance.
This program surveys Vietnamese cinema of independence—films produced to advance the anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle—through works that illuminate the intricate relationship between emotion and politics. Beginning with the industry’s first feature film Chung một dòng sông (On the Same River, 1959) by Nguyễn Hồng Nghi and Phạm Hiếu Dân, where national reunification was allegorized through estranged lovers and established as a recurring motif—the program moves chronologically to examine how emotional expressions evolved and were subverted. Directors such as Hải Ninh and Đặng Nhật Minh (whose memoir Mémoires d’un Cinéaste Vietnamien the title of this series references) trained within this system—many of whom continued to create after its decline—initially harnessed emotion to express revolutionary values, before later reclaiming it as a force independent from nationalist doctrine, resulting in a fascinating arc of transformation.” —Minh Nguyen, series curator.
Below are the 8 selections from the series.
On The Same River, Phạm Kỳ Nam and Nguyễn Hồng Nghi (1959)
“The first feature from Vietnam Feature Film Studio follows lovers Hoài, a guerrilla fighter from the North, and Vận, a young woman from the South, during the war against the French. Their romance becomes a casualty of partition when the country is divided at the Bến Hải River. Co-directed by Nguyễn Hồng Nghi—a pioneering documentarian who worked closely with Hồ Chí Minh, who gifted him North Vietnam’s only film camera in the early 1950s—this landmark work demonstrates how Vietnamese cinema has, from its very origins, channeled national struggles through the lens of romantic relationships.” —Minh Nguyen
The Little Girl From Hanoi, Hải Ninh (1974)
“In the aftermath of the ‘Christmas bombing’ of Hanoi in December 1972, young Ngọc Hà (Lan Hương) searches through the city’s rubble for her missing family. Shot in neorealist style by Hải Ninh, a graduate of the first directing class of the Vietnam Cinema School, this classic wartime propaganda film was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experience sheltering with his daughter during the 12-day bombardment, and witnessing a little girl who was saved from the bombings and cared for by her neighbors—told remarkably through the rare use of a child’s voiceover.” —Minh Nguyen
The Last Hope, Trần Phương (1981)
Journalist Vân fights corruption while caught in a love triangle between her husband Đông, who runs a shady enterprise, and Phương, a Ministry inspector and her former high school crush. Director Trần Phương—who studied in the inaugural class of the People’s School of the Performing Arts and acted in revolutionary films before turning to directing—uses their tangled relationships to capture 1980s Hanoi caught between certainties. Existential and impressionistic, the film presents idealistic love as the last hope against greed and disillusionment in a rapidly modernizing Vietnam.” —Minh Nguyen
Hanoi Through Whose Eyes?, Trần Văn Thuỷ (1983)
Preceded by
The Fox Deserved It, Lê Minh Hiền and Trương Qua (1959)
The Talking Bird, Ngô Mạnh Lân (1967)
“Commissioned to create a tourism film celebrating Hanoi’s attractions, Trần Văn Thuỷ instead made Hanoi Through Whose Eyes?, a melancholic meditation on the capital, considering official narratives of ancient elegance alongside the reality of long welfare lines and neglected monuments. Trần’s essayistic visual time capsule comprises prominent intellectuals, artists, and musicians, including the blind musician Văn Vương and painter Bùi Xuân Phái. Initially censored, the film was later rehabilitated, earning critical acclaim and the state’s Golden Lotus prize. This program opens with The Fox Deserved It and The Talking Bird, two shorts from the Vietnam Animation Film Studio, where animators trained by distinguished artists created allegorical tales about anti-colonial struggle for children.” —Minh Nguyen
The Town Within Reach, Đặng Nhật Minh (1983)
“Hanoi journalist Vũ travels to the border town of Lạng Sơn to report on the aftermath of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese conflict. It is his ex-girlfriend’s hometown, and returning there forces him to confront memories of abandoning her to maintain his reputation and advance his career. This hallucinatory, psychological work entwining personal and political betrayal and grief was director Đặng Nhật Minh’s breakout film. Heartbroken by his own visit to the devastated town, Đặng wrote this story before being encouraged to adapt it for the screen. Shooting amid the actual ruins—which he described as looking ‘like a giant film studio that you didn't have to stage’—the director deepens this private reckoning by appearing on-screen himself.” —Minh Nguyen
When The Tenth Month Comes, Đặng Nhật Minh (1984)
“Đặng’s 1984 masterpiece broke new ground as the first Vietnamese film to screen in the US, and as an early challenger to official war memories. The moving portrait of grief centers on Duyên (Lê Vân), whose husband dies in Vietnam’s post-reunification war with Cambodia. Concealing his death from loved ones, she enlists a schoolteacher to forge letters from him, maintaining the deception at the cost of her own profound anguish. Through impressionistic countryside landscapes and seamless transitions between realms of the living and dead, Đặng built from socialist realist foundations a distinctly lyrical cinematic style.” —Minh Nguyen
Traveling Circus, Việt Linh (1988)
“Việt Linh’s 1988 classic tells the bittersweet story of a small traveling circus from Hanoi who arrive at an ethnic minority village in Vietnam’s central highlands. Through the impressionable eyes of a child, the film shows the stark contrast between reality and illusion as the villagers hope that the performers’ magic, particularly a trick making rice appear, might solve their starvation. Known for surprising audiences with bold stylistic choices, Việt Linh shot in black and white when color had become the norm, infusing the film with touches of magical realism.” —Minh Nguyen
Please Forgive Me, Lưu Trọng Ninh (1992)
“Mai, a young art student, is cast in a film about the War against the Americans. During production, she falls in love with the director, a former soldier. As Mai becomes infatuated with his ‘romantic past’ without truly understanding it, their relationship embodies post–Đổi-Mới Vietnam’s identity shift. Known for his candor and eccentricity, director Lưu Trọng Ninh often focuses on how today’s youth—guided by spirit, vitality, and intuition—challenge their predecessors’ values.” —Minh Nguyen
About Minh Nguyen
Minh Nguyen is a writer and curator based between New York City and Ho Chi Minh City. Her art and film criticism has appeared in publications such as Art in America, Artforum, e-flux, Momus, Mousse, and e-flux journal, where she works as the managing editor. She has organized exhibitions and programs at Wing Luke Museum, Northwest Film Forum, King Street Station, Gene Siskel Film Center, and Chicago Cultural Center, and has received the Warhol Arts Writers Grant and Fogo Island Arts Writing Award. Her book Memorial Park is co-published by Art Metropole and Wendy's Subway.