Film Screening: “Plan Bee”

Thu 05 Sep 2019, 8 pm
L’Espace
24 Trang Tien Str, Hanoi

From the organizer:

You are invited to the premiere of the feature film “Plan Bee”, featuring a discussion with the director and the film crew.

Country of Production: Vietnam, France
Duration: 75 phút
Year of Distribution: 2019
Director & Script Writer: Fabrice Poirier
Cast: Nguyễn Trung Kiên, Fabrice Poirier, Nguyễn Thu Trang, Vũ Kim Anh
Director of Photography: Đặng Xuân Trường
Editor: Fabrice Poirier
Music: Chad Parks
Production Company: Les Films Magnétiques
Language: Vietnamese, French with subtitles in English, Vietnamese

Plot
A young beekeeper tragically loses his wife. Torn between suffering and madness, he trains his bees to kill a French industrialist who produces pesticides that he blames for her death. It is a confrontation between two men, between two very different worlds to understand each other.

Note of intention
The film first is an intimate story of a man weighed down by an aching loneliness, and consumed with the powerful emotions of grief and revenge. And it builds to a confrontation between men, between two very different worlds, with issues of their time: the disappearance of the bees, the use of pesticides and GMOs, environment and ecology, convictions and self-interest, as well as conflict and opposition.

Vietnam
“Plan Bee” was shot in Vietnam with the crew and cast, story and dialogues mostly being Vietnamese. Director Fabrice Poirier decided to shoot this film in Vietnam for several reasons, the first being the massive use of chemicals, especially Agent Orange, used by the US military during the war in Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. Agent Orange still has a considerable impact on the land and on the health of the Vietnamese population. The film also explores related contemporary issues concerning the use of pesticides and GMOs, as well as ecological militancy. The impressive development of Vietnam’s agriculture, especially beekeeping, makes it one of the top ten world exporters of the product. Beekeeping in Vietnam has become a profitable agricultural activity that has created employment for farmers and increased their income.

And so during his travels in Vietnam, he encountered beekeepers and learned about their world, and he knew the film had to be set in the special landscape of the Vietnamese beekeeper.

Director Fabrice Poirier
Born in 1967 Fabrice Poirier studied classical piano and then guitar, playing in various independent rock bands, and worked in different fields including IT before he started his cinema career fifteen years ago.
In 2005, he made his first short film La Colline Jaune – an initiation story, a psychedelic film shot in the south of France with a community living under teepees in the mountains. In 2005 -2006, Fabrice enrolled at ESRA (Ecole Supérieur de Réalisation Audiovisuelle), where he made a reportage and a magazine – about the homeless and the people who take care of them, about the new coffee shops in Paris, about the new French music copyright laws. He made a documentary The Real Thing – centred on the difficult job of an independent director who wanted to create his first feature film….

In 2006-2008, he collaborated on two documentaries: Prison for Women and Relations between France and Israel at Kuiv Productions, directed by Patrick and Michel Rotman.

In 2009 -2010, he made two clips for the electro-rock band Pravda. The first, Tu es à l’ouest, was broadcast on various television channels; the second, Soyuz, was a 3D/relief clip in anaglyphs.

In 2011, he made a short film, Déroute. Using very little dialogue, the story was told through images.

In 2012, he created his production company, Les Films Magnétiques, with primary purpose is to bring into being his first feature film “Plan Bee”.

Film Critiques

“Fabrice Poirier’s ‘Plan Bee’ escapes the clichés of French films with a Vietnamese. It is an admirable, poignant and dizzying film, where chronology has been erased and where the spectator discovers the story only at the last minute, by connecting the threads.”

Doan Anh Thuan (author of six novels published in the United States, Vietnam and France, Seuil and Editions Riveneuve)

“’Plan Bee’ is a multi-layered fable – a romance, a personal tragedy, a revenge movie, even science fiction – a classic story of nature being harnessed to deadly effect. Ultimately the plot is simple. The story is told through a series of scenes, often with little dialogue; it is almost operatic in structure, moving from aria to aria. The film is an aural and visual poem, but you take away a harsh message.

John Napier, U.K. University Academic

Tickets

Ticket price: 60,000 VND
Tickets are available at L’Espace (Mon to Thu: 8.30 am – 7 pm / Fri: 8.30 am – 6 pm and 6.30 – 8 pm / Sat: 9 am – 7 pm)

Watch the film trailer here.

Institut Français de Hanoi – L’Espace 24 Trang Tien Str, Hanoi Tel: (84-24) 39 36 21 64 [email protected] http://ifv.vn/