Private Project

Summer siesta: 6 hour counting from dawn

*The film was made in October, 2018 for TalesOn’s project (Italia) in collabration with Hanoi Doclab called “Realities”, produced by Jamie Maxtone-Graham*

In the midsummer of a tropical country, persons are taking their siesta, personas dream of time, nothing but the tranquility of time. It was inspired by my habit of visiting my uncle's grave on the highest spot of the pine forest where you can see moon in the day time and the sun looks bigger than ever before sunset. It's the transition space between dream and reality, between different reality, the reality of persona who’s gone and persona who stays. It's a completely private space where you are not bothered by anything except for the sound of cicadas and memories. The film also reflects the different possibilities of existence.

  • Hai Yen Nguyen
    Director
  • Nguyễn Hải Yến
    Writer
  • Jamie Maxtone Graham
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 15 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 28, 2017
  • Country of Origin:
    Viet Nam
  • Country of Filming:
    Viet Nam
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Hanoi Docfest 2017

    Viet Nam
    November 16, 2017
  • FilmStoryteller’s One Year Anniversary
    Ha Noi
    Viet Nam
    April 28, 2018
  • Exhibited at Fundacion PROA 2019
    Buenos Aires
    Argentina
    February 1, 2019
  • White Chapel Gallery
    London
Director Biography - Hai Yen Nguyen

Nguyen Hai Yen (Red) is a Lang Son (Vietnam) based video artist and independent art producer whose practice focuses on the multidisciplinary approaches which addresses the shifting boundaries between different forms of art, fiction and documentary, life and death, human and animal, living beings and spirits...Her practice focuses on reflecting one's landscape by questioning what are the ‘gestures’ of memory and belief?

Her video works were featured at Seashort Film Festival, Fundacion-PROA, White Chapell Gallery (nominated by Hanoi DocLab for the Artist Films International 2019), Arkipel International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, Fifth Wall Fest, Mikino Film Festival, Sàn Art, Teater Garasi’s program...Since 2018, she had been involved in organizing multi poetry/experimental music/performance activities with independent publishing house Ajar Press and Heritage Space. Her works as dance producer include various projects with H2Q Dance Company, Kinergie Studio, Mat Tran Ensembles and choreographer Ngo Thanh Phuong. She also produces exhibitions that involve performances. In 2020, she co-directed MORUA - an artist-in-residency program based in Hoi An aiming to create a focused space and time for next-generation performing/performance/interdisciplinary art practitioners to develop their works by researching/exchanging their methods of body-and-movements. She was selected to join Asia Connection: Producers Camp 2021 & 2022, organized by Taiwan’s National Theater & Concert Hall. Recently, she was invited to join the Partnership Development Programme in the UK, funded by the British Council. In late October 2022, Red and her project “Trà đá party#1: Dạo nghe (Sound Walk)” was taking part in Mekong Cultural Hub’s MCH Meeting Point on Art & Social Action 2022. She’s working on her on-going video-performance project “The Tangerine Womb” in her hometown Lạng Sơn, which belong to the Terasia project (a theater project about death, life and belief, initiated by Japanese artists and joined by Indonesian, Malaysian, Thailand and Vietnam artists). Red is a Prince Claus Seed Award Recipient 2022.

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