HÀ NỘI — German director Philipp Widmann’s A House in Ninh Hoa will highlight the Documentary Film Festival in Hà Nội. 

The documentary is about a family history between Việt Nam and Germany. One part of the Lê family has been living close to the former West German capital of Bonn for more than 40 years while the other part still resides in Ninh Hòa District in Nha Trang province. 

The Lê community includes relatives that are present and absent and extends into the spiritual world. 

The documentary script was written by Widmann and Nguyễn Phương Đan. It has been been shown at many film festivals including Filmfest Hamburg and Filmmaker Festival Milano. 

A House in Ninh Hoa with English subtitles will be screened on Sunday at 7pm, at the Goethe Institute Hanoi, 56-58 Nguyễn Thái Học Street. A question and answer session will be held after the screening with director Widmann. 

The screening is a part of the festival which has been being held annually by DocLab and Goethe Institute since 2009. The festival this year, themed Realities Transformed, will showcase documentaries from Việt Nam, Thailand, Indonesia, Macao, Germany, France and Portugal. 

The festival will also play The City of Mirrors: A Fictional Biography by Trương Minh Quý at 10am tomorrow. Born in 1990 in Buôn Ma Thuột, the Central Highland Province of Đắc Lắc, Quý dropped out of HCM City Theatre and Cinema School and became a successful independent filmmaker. 

His experimental and personal films have been screened at exhibitions such as the Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition as well as film festivals in South Korea, Germany and Singapore. 

Quý’s first feature-length film enters his inner world; his childhood memories and his family’s life in their hometown. The 87-minute film will be followed by a discussion with the director. 

A two-day workshop with Widmann on film making and a discussion on the representation of landscape in films with Vietnamese Trần Ngọc Hiếu and Nguyễn Trinh Thi is also part of the festival. 

Panel talks with Indonesian curator Hafiz Rancajale and emerging Vietnamese filmmakers such as Nguyễn Thị Thắm, Trần Phương Thảo and Phạm Ngọc Lân will also be held. — VNS

oth relatives that are present and absent, and extends into the realm of the spirit world.One part of the family has been living close to the former West German capital of Bonn for more than 40 years while the other part still resides in Ninh Hoa. The community of the Les includes both relatives that are present and absent, and extends