Movie Series Screening “No Fighting at the Dinner Table”
22 & 29 June, 13 & 20 July 2024
Ném Space
18/1 Ngô Thời Nhiệm, Võ Thị Sáu, D.3, HCMC
Registration link
From the organizer:
“No fighting at the dinner table” looks to filmic depictions of the humble family meal where, through food and taste, gender and generational dynamics are fought and defended, conceptions of national identity disrupted, and the familial discourse shifted away from concrete and predetermined family entities towards a family always in the making. Expanding on “In Stranger Lands: Cocoa’s Journeys to Asia” and its explorations of taste memories, this four-week screening program – a collaboration between Nguyen Art Foundation and Ném Space, curated by Thái Hà – uncovers how the act of sharing food reveals entangled webs of social and power relations, but also creates complicit cultural knowledge between those present at the table.
Across Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam via France, the family table in cinema is comforting; is dreaded; is tense. In the sumptuous classic “Eat Drink Man Woman” (dir. Ang Lee, 1994), over banquet-like spreads every Sunday, a father and his three daughters take turns to reveal unexpected news that, one by one, removes them from the unit. As father and daughters struggle to reconcile their personal desires with family unity, from the round table spirals Taiwan’s larger contention with the disintegration and rebuilding of its community as it globalizes its economy during the 1990s1. The shorts “Ong Ngoai” and “Malabar” (dir. Maximilan Badier-Rosenthal, 2017 and 2020) see two grandfathers distribute small gifts of food as gestures of much greater care – a way to find and hold onto connection in the Parisian metropolis, where older people fight loneliness as the intergenerational household breaks down. Meanwhile, “Shoplifters” (dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu, 2018) details the bitter underbelly of Japanese society, where its poorest members lean on one another over cheap meals of curry ramen and korokke, and questions whether blood is always thicker than the socio-economic forces that led them to cobble together their makeshift family. Closing with “Little Forest” (dir. Yim Soon-rye, 2018) and its gentle poetry and recipe book pacing, as a daughter searches for her mother she cooks her way through the seasons, and in the process regrounds herself in the land that nurtures her.
For the titles in this program, the family table is the site of societal transition. In conjunction with the screenings, “No fighting at the dinner table” invites viewers to reflect on the impact of such shifts over a series of shared lunches, co-hosted Hieu and Phu of Ném Space. Phu, the program’s resident chef, is inspired by the recipes and flavors of her family’s hometown – Bac Giang. Eating together in a common space, the program extends the films’ gestures of care to then craft new understandings of being individuals within families within imposed and chosen social structures.
* With special thanks to the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute
* The program is organised for educational purposes only
Screening schedule & accompanying lunch menu:
22 June – Eat Drink Man Woman (dir. Ang Lee, 1994)
stir-fried freshwater clams and cowslip creeper, white eggplant and beef salad, braised mushroom and tofu, amaranth and prawn soup
29 June – Ong Ngoai and Malabar (dir. Maximilan Badier-Rosenthal, 2017 and 2020)
stir-fried chilli chicken, tofu and minced pork, banana blossom and fish soup, pickled cabbage
13 July – Shoplifters (dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu, 2018)
chũ noodles, freshwater crab broth
salt and chilli rice noodles
20 July – Little Forest (dir. Yim Soon-rye, 2018)
vegetarian curry
*Screenings: free admission
*Lunches: to be purchased in advance
Thái Hà is a curator and translator whose practice centres the fugitive and freeing possibilities of language through speculation, dreaming, play, and improvisation. Her translations can be found in publications by the Tate St Ives, Carnegie Museum of Art, Asian Art Biennal, ArtReview, and NUSASONIC. In 2023, together with Ném Space, Hà organised Films for liberation: Palestine forever, an action of unwavering solidarity that turned to cinema as a tool for mobilisation and education; the month-long programme travelled from Saigon to Hanoi, Kobe, and Tokyo.
Ném Space is a Sài Gòn-based design studio run by designer/artist Dương Gia Hiếu with an approach from upcycled objects. Today, Ném focuses on how to improve the relationship between people and objects by design.
Phu is a thrift shop owner been doing her business for over 7 years in Phu Nhuan district, she’s also the main chef at Ném. She cooks authentic Vietnamese food with a slightly Northern flavor.
Hieu does design and art in Saigon, he cooks when he gets stressed, and he likes to cook foods which is unable to be listed in any cuisine.
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