A short film directed by a Vietnamese director will be screened as part of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
France’s prestigious celebration of cinema Festival de Cannes is returning this year from May 17 to 28. The festival recently presented a complete list of short films to be screened during the program’s duration. Nine films are selected to compete for the Short Film Palme d'Or while 16 live actions and animated shorts will be shown as part of La Cinéf, a category featuring works by students from film schools across the globe. The best three shorts of La Cinéf will be awarded prizes during the festival.
Spring Roll Dream, a short film directed by Mai Vu, was picked by La Cinéfondation to represent the United Kingdom’s National Film & Television School. The nine-minute stop-motion short was selected from a pool of 1,528 entries. According to the film’s trailer description, the school’s graduating crew worked on Spring Roll Dream, with Mai Vu as the lead animator and director.
The short's poster. Image via Facebook user Mai Vu.
The short explores the family dynamic of a three-generation household. Linh is a Vietnamese single mother who’s built a stable life for herself and her son in the US, but her life balance is thrown off when her father visits from Vietnam and insists on making gỏi cuốn for her son. When this seemingly innocuous conflict arises, “Linh is confronted with the past and culture she left behind and the question of where it belongs in her family’s new life,” the short synopsis reads.
People’s Artist Bùi Bài Bình, best known for his role in the 2000 arthouse movie Mùa Ổi (The Season of Guavas), lends his voice to the role of the grandfather Sang Bui, while Elyse Dinh voices Linh and Jarlan Bogolubo voices Alan, Linh’s son. It’s unclear at the time of writing whether the short film will have a public premiere in Vietnam.
Watch Spring Roll Dream’s trailer below:
