Documentary film festival offers voices for sustainable development

Blue Carbon: Nature's Hidden Power directed by Nicolas Brown will open the documentary film festival on October 30 at 7pm at National Cinema Centre. Photo courtesy of the Goethe Institute

HÀ NỘI - Ten documentaries will be screened as part of a film festival, Voices for Tomorrow: Documentary Film Festival for Sustainability, organised by the Goethe Institute Hà Nội and the Centre for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents (TPD).

The festival will introduce stories about how people worldwide struggle to adapt to rapid environmental and social changes.

"The organisers hope that the films showing at the festival will have a certain voice and change social perception of climate change," said Nguyễn Hoàng Phương, director of TPD at the press conference.

Opening the festival will be Blue Carbon: Nature's Hidden Power from the UK, directed by Nicolas Brown.

Narrated by Jayda Guy, a Grammy-nominated music producer, DJ, and environmental toxicologist, Blue Carbon: Nature’s Hidden Power is a compelling environmental documentary scored by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and featuring Seu Jorge.

Spanning through the US, Senegal, Việt Nam, France, Colombia and Brazil, the film investigates coastal ecosystems' role in carbon sequestration.

The documentary offers a hopeful perspective on environmental activism and the intersection of music and science in ecological preservation.

Others films are from Pakistan, the US, Germany, France and Việt Nam.

Three Vietnamese filmmakers, Nguyễn Ngọc Thảo Ly, Nguyễn Thu Hương and Nguyễn Thị Yến Trinh will show their short films: Flowing With The Currents, Madame Liên's Factory and The Hungry River.

The 32 minute-in length Madame Liên's Factory is a story of several families living on an island in the Mékong Delta. They have chosen to develop a tourist area built on a community-based model. Each person has their role to play in making a success of the project by acquiring new skills, but this success stirs up envy.

The films will be shown on October 31 at 7pm at the National Cinema Centre (NCC), 87 Láng Hạ Street, Hà Nội. The centre will also be screening two others, The Dolphin Dilemma by American Olivia Andrus-Drennan and When the Floods Come by Pakistani Nyal Mueenuddin.

The festival highlight will be a German offering The Dust of Modern Life. The film was made by Franziska von Stenglin in Tây Nguyên in Việt Nam. It is about the universal human desire to retreat from society.

Once a year, Liêm a young man from the Xê Đăng ethnic minority, retreats to a jungle in the middle of the highland mountains of Việt Nam with his friends.

Leaving his normal life behind – his family, his smart phone, motorbike, domestic duties and his work in the fields - he goes into a primaeval forest to live like his ancestors once did, hunting and gathering.

This is a time from his daily responsibilities, during which he regains energy and health, purifying himself from the dust of modern life.

The film screening will be on October 3 to close the festival with participation of director Franziska von Stenglin.

All the films have English or Vietnamese subtitles. Tickets from the NCC will cost VNĐ20,000 (US80 cents).