HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese movie Người Vợ Ba (The Third Wife) has received the RTVE - Another Look Award at the 66th San Sebastian International Film Festival.

The Another Look Award by the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation aims to reward cinema focusing on female stories; directed, starring or written by women, or by men whose films show particular sensitivity towards the world in question.

A jury specially created for the RTVE - Another Look Award selected Người Vợ Ba, one of the films presented at the New Directors category in San Sebastian International Film Festival held last Saturday. This award consists of acquiring the right to broadcast the film on television for the general public.

The movie which is the first motion picture by director Phương Anh, also won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) award for the best Asian film at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

"I wish to thank all women in my life and all female artists that came before me for lighting the torch that guides us," the director wrote on her Facebook page. "To all women filmmakers, today I wish to dedicate this award to all of you".

In 19th century rural Việt Nam, a 14-year-old girl becomes the third wife of a wealthy landowner. Soon she learns that she can only gain status by giving birth to a baby boy.

Her hope to change her status turns into a real and tantalising possibility when she falls pregnant. Faced with forbidden love and its devastating consequences, she finally comes to an understanding of the brutal truth: the options available to her are few and far between.

Born in Việt Nam and educated in the UK and the US, Phương Anh received a Master of Fine Arts in film-making from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She has directed numerous plays and short films in the UK and the US. She has worked at the National Theatre in London as an assistant director, and in off-Broadway productions as a director.

Her short films The Silver Man, Sam, Heart of a Doll, Grasshopper, Lupo, Walking the Dead and No Exit have been screened at multiple international festivals. The screenplay for The Third Wife was a recipient of the Spike Lee Film Production Fund award in 2014 and part of the IFP Narrative Lab 2017 in New York.

The Third Wife will have its Asian premiere at the A Window on Asian Cinema programme at the Busan International Film Festival that will be held on October 4-13. — VNS