Private Project

Saigon Saigon

A shy young man and a mysterious girl spend a night together in the city of Saigon. Their mutual attraction develops. In the morning, they must decide whether to enter a relationship or go in their separate ways. Based on Dotstovetsy’s short story “White Nights.”

  • Nguyen Tran
    Director
  • nguyen tran
    Writer
  • nguyen tran
    Producer
  • tu anh nguyen
    Key Cast
    "the boy"
  • anh ha le
    Key Cast
    "the girl"
  • vissay lam
    Key Cast
    "stephen"
  • linh phuong lam
    Key Cast
    "Kieu My"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    romance, drama
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 32 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 21, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    Viet Nam
  • Country of Filming:
    Viet Nam
  • Language:
    Vietnamese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nguyen Tran

Nguyen is a self-taught filmmaker. He loves experimenting with new filmic languages and making movies about the Vietnamese identities.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The inspiration for "Saigon Saigon" comes from my desire to photograph Saigon. That city holds a special place in my heart. However it's also a fast-changing city, constantly evolving and starting anew. This observed fact unfortunately makes me mindful of the relentless march of time. I'm getting to the age where my mother is getting visibly old and my favorite actors are passing away one after another. And that makes me melancholic. So I guess I made this movie out of melancholy. I made this movie about the theme of the impermanance of life -- about people entering your life, and in a blink of an eye, they're gone; about people existing, and in a blink of an eye, they're gone.

I decided on the maximalist approach, that is to say I wanted to cram as many images of the city as possible. To make sense of this, I used montage filmmaking, the way Eisenstein preferred it, which is to assemble a series of disparate images to create a complex idea that is unique to the person's artistic sensibilities. My hope in employing the techniques of montage filmmaking is to use a simple love story to reveal all my conflicted feelings about this city, its painful past and aspirations for the future.