CAIRO — Vietnamese movie Người Vợ Ba (The Third Wife) bagged another international award by winning the Best Artistic Contribution in International Competition at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) on November 29.

Directed by Nguyễn Phương Anh (aka. Ash Mayfair), the film was among the top 14 in the international category. 

It tells a story of 19th century rural Việt Nam, in which 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 hopes of changing her status turn into a real and tantalising possibility when she becomes pregnant. Faced with forbidden love and its devastating consequences, she finally comes to understand the brutal truth: the options available to her are few and far between.

The first motion picture by director Anh won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) award for the best Asian film at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It also earned the Best Film award at the 24th Kolkata International Film Festival in India this month. 

The 40th CIFF took place from November 20 to 29, featuring more than 160 movies from 59 countries and territories. It is an annual event organised by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. 

The organisers of this year’s CIFF also presented other International Competition awards including the Golden Pyramid Award for Best Film, presented to A Twelve-Year Night by director Álvaro Brechner (Uruguay, Argentina, Spain), the Silver Pyramid Award for Best Director, presented to director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng of Manta Ray and director Sergei Loznitsa of Donbass.

In last year’s edition of the festival, Đảo Của Dân Ngụ Cư (The Way Station) by young director Phạm Thị Hồng Ánh was included in the top 16 films. — VNS