IFW 2026 | Talk: Cinema Never Stands Alone

02 PM, Wed 28 October 2026
Casa Italia
18 Lê Phụng Hiểu, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội
Registration link

From Italian Film Week in Vietnam

Cinema is called the seventh art, but what may matter more is that it has never belonged to anyone alone. The silver screen is like a crossroads where the arts all pause: a piece of music finds its form, a page of prose steps out as frames of film, a bolt of fabric, a building, a moving figure become part of the story.

Italian Film Week in Vietnam 2026 opens many ways into that crossroads. “Primavera” marks the first time an opera director, Damiano Michieletto, brings the sound of Vivaldi’s violin before the lens. In “Diamanti | Diamonds”, the humming of sewing machines in a costume workshop becomes the breath of the entire film. “Le Città Di Pianura | The Last One For The Road” lets an architecture student lose himself across the plains of Veneto. And “Gioia Mia | Sweetheart” is the debut feature of Margherita Spampinato, who came up from behind the scenes of cinema and then wrote, directed and edited the film herself.

When the arts touch, are they lifted up or drowned out? Three guests will look for the answer together from three sides: director Bùi Kim Quy, from inside the craft of filmmaking; performance artist and dance educator Lyon D. Nguyen, from the body and movement; and Hà Minh Thư (Mint), art producer and co-founder of Ồ Ạt Oh Art, from behind the scenes, where independent art projects find the chance to take shape.

The talk hopes to suggest a different way of watching films: not only seeing a single film, but noticing the many arts speaking together inside it.

Speakers:

Bùi Kim Quy (born 1983 in Hanoi) is a film director, screenwriter and lecturer at the Faculty of Film Art, Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema. She came to directing from screenwriting and writes the scripts for her own films, from shorts to features. Her short “The Cushion” (Cái đệm) won first prize at Vietnam’s national short film competition, and her two features are “The Inseminator” (Người truyền giống) and “Memoryland” (Miền ký ức). “The Inseminator” had its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival 2014 and subsequently traveled to Locarno, Rotterdam, among others. It won the Grand Prize in the International New Talent Competition at the Taipei Film Festival in 2015. “Memoryland” competed in the New Currents section at Busan 2021, screened at the 2022 Berlinale, and won the Golden Lady Harimaguada for best feature at the 21st Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. “Dear Sơn An” is her third feature film project as writer/director.

Lyon D. Nguyen is a performance artist, lecturer and dance educator. His work centers on connection between the body, stories and community, the same materials cinema works with: a body moving through space, a story told through image and rhythm. He graduated with distinction in Dance from Sam Houston State University and pursued graduate studies at the University of Utah. His work has been presented at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, The Tank (New York) and festivals across the United States. He has taught at the University of Utah and the Ho Chi Minh City School of Dance, co-founded the Queer Spectra Arts Festival (2019), and co-produced and directed the “Lắng Nghe Điểm Chạm” series (2024-2025), expanding access to the arts for Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in Vietnam. In this conversation, he brings a perspective from the body and movement: what happens when performance art meets cinema.

Hà Minh Thư is an art producer and co-founder of Ồ Ạt Oh Art Festival, a contemporary art platform based in Ho Chi Minh City presenting artists and works across visual arts, cinema and performance. As part of the annual festival, Ồ Ạt’s film programme works with curators and film institutions to showcase Vietnamese and Southeast Asian short films, alongside feature film premieres and promotional activities. In 2025, Minh Thư collaborated with Lotte Cinema and Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film (Singapore) to bring a Southeast Asian short film programme to 40 Lotte cinemas across Vietnam for the first time. Minh Thư holds a Master of Public Policy from Fulbright University Vietnam. She brings a producer’s perspective on the relationships and resources that enable artistic practices to meet, and on the role of independent platforms in creating opportunities for works to be presented and reach new audiences.

Moderator: Nguyễn Tú Hằng – Director of Hanoi Grapevine

NOTE:
By taking part, you are deemed to have agreed that the Organizing Committee may use all of their images and statements as program materials for non-profit purposes such as archiving, writing articles, and media promotion.

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