A scene from 'Mot Khu Dat Tot' (Blessed Land) by Pham Ngoc Lan, winner of Best Film at the International Competition for Fiction and Documentaries at the 16th VIS Vienna Shorts Festival in Austria on June 2 (Photo courtesy of the producer) HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Vietnamesefilm ‘Mot Khu Dat Tot’ (Blessed Land) by Pham Ngoc Lan won theBest Film at the International Competition for Fiction &Documentaries at the 16th VIS Vienna Shorts Festival in Austria onJune 2.
Lan received a cash prize of 4,000 euros (4,500USD). His film now qualifies for the European Film Awardsand the Academy Awards in the US.
The 19-minute black-and-white film includes twostories occurring at the same location 10 years apart.
The story is about a mother and son looking forthe father’s tomb at a cemetery.
Ten years later, the land is turned into agolf club where a talk between a rich man and his secret mistress occurs.
The film features People’s Artist Minh Chau, HoangHa, Huy Tien and Thuy Anh.
Mot Khu Dat Tot was nominated in the Berlinale Shorts categoryat the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, German in February.
It won Special Mention Award from the juryat the International Shorts Competition at the 20th Las Palmas de GranCanaria International Film Festival in Canary Islands in March.
The film won top prize at the 2018 CJ Short FilmProject, one of the top short film contests in Vietnam. The 200 million VND (8,600USD) prize gave Lan a chance to turn his screenplay into a film.
Lan of Hanoi graduated from the Hanoi Universityof Architecture, but later followed his passion to make independent films.
His first film, The Story of Ones in2011, was screened at numerous film festivals and art museums, such as the NewCinema and Contemporary Art - Rencontres Internationales in France, and TokyoMetropolitan Museum of Photography in Japan.
In 2016, his film Another City wasnominated in the shorts category at the 66th Berlin International Film Festivalin 2016.
His work, Cu Li Never Cries,received the Hubert Bals Fund for Script Development at the 2017 InternationalFilm Festival Rotterdam, and was chosen for the L’Atelier Cinefondation at the2017 Cannes Film Festival.
He is working on the feature version of CuLi Never Cries.
The VIS Vienna Shorts is an international shortfilm festival organised by the association Independent Cinema in Vienna. It isa qualifying festival for the Academy Awards, the European Film Awards and theAustrian Film Awards
This year’s festival presented 305 films ofunder 30 minutes from 55 countries. Of these, 67 were screened in thetwo international competitions, Fiction & Documentary and AnimationAvant-garde, and 23 in the Austrian Competition.-VNS/VNA
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