Experiencing Interruptions?

As I lay dying

After having a weird dream of drowning in water, Thanh went to a psychic, who performed spirit medium ritual, to get answers. The psychic gave Thanh a gold Buddha necklace for protection and asked her to come along with him to a temple to pray for blessings. On the way there, Thanh saw a young girl of 10-12 years old, seemingly a ghost haunting her. She also had another dream in which she was a film director and in the film, the psychic was the male lead named Nam and the ghost was the female lead named Trang. Nam was Thanh’s boyfriend but their relationship was in dry spell and Nam kept playing around Trang. He gave Thanh a gold Buddha necklace but Thanhreturned it to him. Thanh got jealous with Trang and simultaneously, she had different illusions both awake and in her dreams, in which she performed spirit medium ritual, underwater dreams and the talk with the psychic led her to the gold necklace and her last dream. She found out that Trang got the necklace from Nam and while fighting, Thanh killed Trang and dragged her into water. After finding out the trauma which seemed to happen in the same reality, the psychic pushed Thanh into the river. That’s when she woke up from all the dreams. It turned out that she was traumatized because of an abortion she had a year ago and Nam was her husband. Thanh and Nam both sitting in the same restaurant she dreamt of, saying the lines of dying characters in the movie she made in her dream.

  • Le Quynh Anh
    Director
  • Le Quynh Anh
    Writer
  • Pham Le Dung
    Producer
  • Truong Hoang An
    Key Cast
  • Ngoc Nick M
    Key Cast
  • Ha Thien Trang
    Key Cast
  • Be Van Tam
    Cinematographer
  • Trinh Quang Linh
    Director of Photography
  • Nguyen Anh Tu
    Art Director
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Khi tôi nằm chết
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Student, Virtual Reality, Other
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 2 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 31, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Vietnam
  • Country of Filming:
    Vietnam
  • Language:
    Vietnamese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
Director Biography - Le Quynh Anh

Born in 1992 in Haiphong, Vietnam, Le Quynh Anh graduated from Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema, specialized in Film
Directing. Before that, she attended Foreign Trade University,
majored in International Trade.
In 2013, she made her first film, “YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW”, which was screened in Hanoi mini Docfest 2013 at
Goethe Institute and was awarded Excellent Award in Student
Film Festival 2013.
She continued to attend filmmaking workshops in Hanoi Doclab
and The Centre for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents (TPD) from 2013 to 2015.
In 2014, she attended workshop in Docnet – Southeast Asian
Documentary Film Festival.
In 2016, she attended HANIFF Campus for young filmmakers in
Hanoi International Film Festival with the project “AS I LAY
DYING” and claimed Excellent Award in Directing.
In February/2017, her short, “A MALE CAT” was chosen in 12th
Mobile Film Festival and screened in Paris.
In September/2017, "AS I LAY DYING" has been shown in 2 international film festivals: 24th ADANA International Film Festival, 3rd Asian Youth Micro Film.
Recently, she has joined “BLACK SHEEP” project, which aims to
make films and teach filmmaking to the poor and contribute to
the social development of the local communities.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Since I was a child, I’ve always noticed the fascination of my own dreams: they vary in time, places, people, seem to have no boundaries and their meaning ties closely to my emotions.
Also I want to dig deep into the mind of fellow young women in Vietnam: when they are growing older from youngsters to the middle-aged, mostly they will get married and have their first child. Always, they handle domestic matters on their own with very little help from their men and regularly depend on the psychic or fortune-tellers; for everything could be solved spiritually by Gods and Goddess nowadays in modern Vietnam, where the disbelief in real-life authorities is growing. This woman in my film is suffering from troubled dreams as she gave up her first child and her maternal feelings are holding on to her. She got lost, confused reality with dreams and in between, she seeks redemption for her act of killing her own child.
In the film, there are scenes of spirit medium ritual. This is a part of Vietnamese traditional religion in which people worship spirits of Nature in the form of Goddess Mothers. It also relates to the character as in Vietnam, people consider a child that is given to its mother by blessings will be easily claimed back by Goddess Mothers.
It will be a film with four layers of reality, the first being the character in real life and her journey through three diferent dreams, that is dream in dream. Regarding the complexity of the story, the cinematography will be simple, smooth movements with key transitions connecting the layers of the film.
In the end, we collect from the shattered emotional dreams, fill the hole in our hearts and keep on living. No matter how lost you are, there is always a way out. That is how we survive.