VIỆT AND NAM

Two young men emerge from the gloomy darkness of a cave. They are in the bowels of the earth working as coal miners, but Việt and Nam are also lovers, enjoying moments of physical embrace kept secret from the rest of the world, before one of them embarks on a dangerous emigration to another country. From this personal drama, captured with sensual detail and mesmeric eroticism, Vietnamese filmmaker Trương Minh Quý digs even deeper to excavate the memories and legacies of a nation. Set at the turn of the 21st century, Trương’s film resounds with echoes of the country’s war decades earlier, as Nam’s mother takes them on a pilgrimage to try and discover where his father was killed as a soldier. World premiering at Cannes Un Certain Regard, VIỆT AND NAM is a tremendously beautiful and atmospheric film to behold, with the visuals matched by a great narrative boldness and confidence. Shot in a hypnotic style on 16mm film—and banned in its home country—VIỆT AND NAM is a remarkable work of quiet expressivity about two men with unsettled pasts and indeterminate futures. For one of them, a better life in Europe beckons–but at what cost?