|
Art & Entertainment News 29/6
Ao
dai fashion show hits
A fashion
show of ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese long robe, was held in
The Viet
Nam Embassy in
The
event, entitled Diversity in Vietnamese Identity, took place at Dong Xuan
commercial centre, established by the Vietnamese community in
Shooting
starts on father-son indie movie
Independent
film director Luong Dinh Dung's first feature film, Cha Cong Con (Father
Carries Son) is being shot this week in Ha Giang Province.
The film
features the short life of Ca, a boy living in a fishing village who has a
life-threatening disease. His father, Moc, a poor fisherman, works hard to
earn money to pay his medical bills.
"My
film is for Vietnamese fathers. I hope it will leave a strong impression on
audiences through its stories, images and music," said Dung, in a recent
interview with Dien Anh Viet
As a
graduate of the Ha Noi College of Theatre and Cinematography, he has worked
for private and State-owned film companies and studios.
Vietnam,
Hungary co-sponsor concert in New York
A
cultural show themed "Dialogue through art and music" was recently
held in
The June
25 event saw the attendance of Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary-General of
the UN and Deputy Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the
Empowerment of Women (UN Women) as well as ambassadors, heads of missions to
the UN.
At the
show, Vietnamese pianist Chau Giang and renowned artists from the Budapest
Opera and other countries performed famous works of Zoltan Kodaly, Franz
Liszt, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Erik Satie.
The
representation "Dialogue through art and music" was organised on
the initiative of Ambassador Katalin Bogyay, former President of the General
Assembly of UNESCO for the 36th term (2011-2013), and currently head of the
Permanent Mission of Hungary to the United Nations.
Protection,
restoration of fine arts focused
Domestic
and international experts gathered in
The
workshop, organised by the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, forms part of activities
under a project jointly implemented by the museum, the Dresden University of
Art in Germany and the Goethe Institute in Hanoi from 2012-2017.
Participants
discussed the restoration of the two oil paintings “Me con” (Mother and
baby), and “Ruou can” (drinking wine out of a jar through pipes).
Marina
Langner from the University, who led the joint team, introduced the two works
of art before and after their restoration, as well as the techniques applied
in the process.
Since
2013, the Museum has sent staff members to the Dresden University of Art and
conducted a number of training sessions with German experts to build staff
capacity.
It also
aims to apply advanced technology in the protection and restoration of art in
line with the plan for art development through 2020.
The
Vietnam Fine Arts Museum has more than 20,000 vulnerable and precious pieces
of oil painting, lacquer, wood, paper and fabric art works.
A
musical take on current issues
Vietnamese
traditional musical language, xam or busking, has been used for the very
first time to communicate social issues in a music video entitled Xam Tra Da
(Iced Tea Busking).
The
special video was released on June 21, which coincided with the 90th
anniversary of
The
nearly nine-minute-long video has been produced by Xam Ha Thanh, a group of
buskers in Ha Noi. It is also the first product that will launch the upcoming
musical project entitled Tinh Hoa Nhac Viet (Vietnamese Musical
Quintessence).
"Xam,
the music of blind street performers from the old days, has always been a
means to express feelings and emotions. Buskers have been able to compose or
extemporise songs about current affairs that the communities where they are
living are concerned about," musician Nguyen Quang Long, who is also the
initiator of the project, said.
"We
want to continue to promote the strength of busking and contribute to raising
the voice of the masses on contemporary social affairs."
Xam Tra
Da is a potpourri of four main songs – Tam Tri An, Dan Lang Tu Lo Giu Rung,
Bo Con Bo Vo and May Bay Roi – all of which have been cleverly connected in a
story told by special reporters who are also buskers. The contents of the
songs refer to social events trending on television, newspapers and the
Internet.
The
video begins with the scene of a young man (played by singer Nguyen Shan)
riding a motorbike along familiar streets around
There he
meets two friends (played by singers Quang Long and Khuong Cuong) and has a
chat about hot current issues, including the behaviour of the youth when the
free water park opened early this summer, the bravery of Bahnar ethnic people
in the central Gia Lai Province in protecting their forests, the rising
numbers of young mothers who are abandoning their newborns and also airline
safety.
Explaining
the title of the music video, Long said the iced tea stall has become a
distinctive image of Ha Noi and also a popular rendezvous point for Hanoians
during their free time. The topics discussed at the stalls are also as
current as broadcasted in any official channel. This was the inspiration for the
video being named Iced Tea Busking.
"Xam
Tra Da is being broadcast mainly via YouTube, a public channel where people
can freely share information with each other. We producers plan to cover news
about traffic, currently a hot issue, in the next episode of Xam Tra Da,
which is expected to be finished in the next two months," Long said.
"We
hope to create a fresh and lively image of modern xam, so that it is closer
to life and somehow meets the present demands for entertainment. Everyone can
see several interesting features hidden in our traditional arts."
Climate quiz awards granted
The EU
Delegation to
The
quiz, which ran between June 18 and 24, gathered more than 1,000 entries.
Each day
the delegation asked two multiple-choice and one open-ended question. The
open questions touched on different climate change issues relevant to Viet
Nam, including the impact of climate change in Viet Nam, how to educate
children about saving energy, and ways to reduce the use of plastic bags and
carbon dioxide emissions caused by motorised vehicles.
"I
am delighted to see that so many Vietnamese, especially young people, have
enthusiastically participated in the quiz," said Franz Jessen,
ambassador of the EU Delegation to
"This
shows the awareness and concern Vietnamese people have about climate change –
a pressing issue the whole world is facing."
The five
winners were awarded bamboo bikes produced by a Vietnamese company, Mekong
Creations, which is sponsored by the EU Delegation and the embassies of
The quiz
was part of a series of events organized by the EU Delegation to
The
management board of the
Since
the beginning of this year, more than 100,000 people have visited the
beautiful site.
Infrastructure
around the site has been upgraded, and tourist guides have been trained and
security has been ensured. Local residents are also encouraged to raise
livestock and plant vegetables to meet tourist demand.
US-backed
film competition on wildlife protection calls for entries in
Individuals
and groups are all welcome to share their filmmaking passion and resolve in
combating sinister crime against wildlife by submitting their short films to
an ongoing competition organized as part of the Vietnam-US liaison in the
relentless fight.
The
WildFest film contest, which was launched on June 22 in
The
competition accepts recently produced films of up to seven minutes in
duration.
The
films are meant to promote awareness, knowledge and understanding of wildlife
and their habitat, and effectively address issues related the illegal
wildlife trade and rhino horn consumption through their powerful messages to
the relevant target audiences.
Entries
are to be submitted to http://www.wildfest.org, or via YouTube,
On
October 1, the jury will select the most riveting films to be part of the
“Official Selection,” where they will compete for the top three awards.
The
winning films will premiere at the WildFest awards ceremony, slated to be
held on November 1 at the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, located in downtown
The film
competition will also feature an exclusive premiere of flicks created by
three acclaimed filmmakers, Nguyen Hoang Dung, Nguyen Hoang Diep and
Vietnamese-American director Bao Nguyen.
Diep’s
“Dap Canh Giua Khong Trung” (Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere) won Best Film
in the International Critics’ Week – a program for debut films at the 2014
Venice International Film Festival – as well as a handful of other
international prizes.
Nguyen’s
debut long documentary “Live from
These
three directors also sit on the WildFest jury.
Famed
Vietnamese actress Hong Anh, Vietnamese-American director Charlie Nguyen,
newspaper editor Anh Tuan and video jockey Thuy Minh have been named WildFest
ambassadors.
WildFest
is part of Operation Game Change (OGC), which is a joint alliance between
Vietnam and the US to have broad appeal and influence the public regarding
illegal wildlife issues in Vietnam, particularly to stop rhino horn
trafficking.
“We want
WildFest to encourage creative approaches to tackling the illegal wildlife
trade, and would like to encourage anyone who is passionate about using films
to make a difference to enter this competition,” Lisa Bess Wishman,
representative of the US Embassy, said at a recent workshop in Hanoi within
the OGC framework.
Sulma
Warne, deputy director of Asia-based Freeland Foundation, the OGC’s
co-organizer, said that apart from rhinos, he encourages WildFest filmmakers
to also focus on humans’ devastating power against other breeds, including
wood and certain flora varieties.
Freeland
is a frontline organization working for a world that is free of wildlife
trafficking and human slavery.
“I
really don’t want to see a Vietnamese or Chinese flag erected where a rhino
is killed. People at seminars on rhinos often ask if any participants are
Vietnamese, which really upsets me,” Nguyen My Dung, a trained Vietnamese
filmmaker and wildlife protector with loads of experience in interacting with
wildlife in
Under
the OGC campaign, governments, NGOs, students, and celebrities from Vietnam,
the US, and South Africa are working together to curb the illegal trade
in rhino horn while encouraging everyone to cease buying all endangered
species.
The OGC
will culminate with a nationally televised event and concert in September to
coincide with World Rhino Day (September 22).
According
to
Clip
makers apologize for ‘kiss cam’ joke
A group
of clip makers have recently made an apology for their video, strongly
criticized for its controversial content about a joke called “kiss cam.”
It might
sound the same but it is actually completely different from the well-known
namesake social game at sporting events in the
The new
“kiss cam” game in
The
footage captured the game players shouting out the word “kiss cam” in front
of the camera, driving around
Her
boyfriend is about to attack the kisser.
The
video was the Vietnamese version of a clip in which several young Western
people, who were playing the “kiss cam” joke, kissed strange people on
streets and then fled away.
The
Vietnamese version got published on YouTube a few days after the foreign
video was shared widely on social media.
The
Vietnamese clip has received tons of criticism from people who said the joke
was unacceptable to local culture.
“It’s
good to imitate civilized cultures but you must understand what you’re going
to do,” Le Minh commented on YouTube. “What is copied must be tailored to
suit Vietnamese culture.”
“Lip
kissing is an important act in the Vietnamese context,” he added. “It’s only
for lovers, between husbands and wives, and it often takes place in private.”
Minh
said the unthinking imitation reflects the clip makers’ mindlessness.
Meanwhile,
others expressed their concerns over the risk of diseases spreading via the
kisses or even the affray possibly triggered by the joke.
Lawyer
Nguyen Van Hau, vice president of the Ho Chi Minh City Lawyers Association,
said that the joke was considered offensive in Vietnamese culture and
adversely influenced public lifestyle.
Dao Le
Hoa An, director of strategy at the Y Tuong Viet life skill training center,
even regarded the joke as public sexual abuse.
He said
kissing is a private thing in
“If you
suddenly kiss somebody without their permission, the act could be considered
an instance of public sexual abuse,” he emphasized.
The
girl's boyfriend threw his shoes at the kisser after this scene.
A representative
of the group told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on June 26 that the video was
made by a team of 20 people.
He said
after every kissing scene, they did apologize to the people who were kissed
and explained that the group was only making a trendy and funny video.
The main
purpose of the video primarily was bringing fun to everybody, then showing
young people that which foreign cultural behavior should or should not be
re-enacted in
“We
initially wanted to make a funny video and we also imagined that things could
go wrong,” the group representative said.
He added
that the team members had not thought that the public would vent such strong
criticism even though they had anticipated that the video would be in the
spotlight.
“We
apologized for that and will take it as a lesson so that our group will
produce better content in the future,” he added.
The
video is currently no long available on YouTube.
Source: VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/Tuoitre
|
Thứ Hai, 29 tháng 6, 2015
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét