”Bi, Don’t Be Afraid” at Factory

Film Screening: Tue 16 Aug 2011, 7 pm
Discussion with director Phan Dang Di: 17 Aug 2011, 2 pm
3rd floor, Factory

From Factory Bar:
You are invited to come to film screening “Bi, don’t be afraid” and a discussion with director Phan Dang Di and his team at Factory. The film is “the mixture of muscular poetry and sexual candour is seriously impressive” (Tony Ryan).

For more information, see below:

About the film:
Phan Dang Di scripted last year’s Adrift, and he’s now turned director to continue his daringly frank exploration of sexual desires and blockages – a topic rarely broached in earlier Vietnamese movies.

The six-year-old Bi lives with his parents, an aunt and a servant in an old part of Hanoi and likes to play in an ice-making plant nearby. Home life changes gear when Bi’s bedridden grandfather returns from overseas, just as Bi’s father starts spending more and more time out visiting a favourite ‘masseuse’, causing his wife great distress which she generally manages to hide. Meanwhile Bi’s aunt, a spinsterish teacher, develops an agonising crush on a teenage boy. Phan observes the resulting stresses and strains with a limpid eye, using strands of imagery to link disparate events without imposing any overarching narrative. Bi obviously understands little of what happens either at home or in the ice plant, but he has as much need for companionship as any of the adults; using the child as a focus allows Phan to show the grown-up sexual issues with a certain innocence. The mixture of muscular poetry and sexual candour is seriously impressive.
(Tony Ryan)

Free entrance.

Language:
Film screening: Vietnamese with English subtitles
Art talk: Vietnamese but audience can use English (Director Phan Dang Di and his team are fluently English speaking).