Memories of a Vietnamese Cinema

Metrograph is pleased to showcase a collection of cinematic landmarks from Vietnam, guest programmed by Minh Nguyen. The series is presented in partnership with the Vietnam Film Institute, who wish to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and the 30th anniversary of US-Vietnam diplomatic normalization.

“In 1953, Ho Chi Minh’s socialist film decree officially launched the modern Vietnamese film industry, spurring prolific creations across newsreels, documentaries, action films, dramas, and children’s animations. While these works contained themes consistent with socialist cinema worldwide—actively engaging in dialogue with internationalist movements—they possessed a distinctive aesthetic quality. Drawing on the country’s deep-rooted traditions in poetic and dramatic arts, these films expressed the values of socialism, liberation, endurance, vengeance, and love through lyrical realism and intimate relationships. The Party even had a term for this approach: “lãng mạn cách mạng,” or revolutionary romance.

This program surveys Vietnamese cinema of independence—films produced to advance the anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle—through works that illuminate the intricate relationship between emotion and politics. Beginning with the industry’s first feature film Chung một dòng sông (On the Same River, 1959) by Nguyễn Hồng Nghi and Phạm Hiếu Dân, where national reunification was allegorized through estranged lovers and established as a recurring motif—the program moves chronologically to examine how emotional expressions evolved and were subverted. Directors such as Hải Ninh and Đặng Nhật Minh (whose memoir Mémoires d’un Cinéaste Vietnamien the title of this series references) trained within this system—many of whom continued to create after its decline—initially harnessed emotion to express revolutionary values, before later reclaiming it as a force independent from nationalist doctrine, resulting in a fascinating arc of transformation.” —Minh Nguyen, series curator

Special thanks to program assistant Jenn Thảo Nguyễn and Hoàng Mai (Vietnamese Film Institute)