May 16 – 19:00
King’s College London, Strand Campus
Portugal and Vietnam, 2020
Directed by
Viet Vu
Running time
16 minutes
Pierre Ghislain’s small Lisbon apartment is cluttered. He and the filmmaker wade through piles of boxes stacked on piles of unused furniture. In the background we see paintings, photographs, sports equipment: memories of a life fully lived.
Pierre welcomes us in his small kitchen. He talks to the filmmaker about a life of loneliness and depression. He talks about reincarnation.
Sometimes, a small act of affection is enough to brighten your day. The filmmaker steps in front of the camera, and the two bodies become one. Pierre and we, the viewer, are healed by Viet Vu’s tender touch.
– Francesco Quario
Meet the director
Việt Vũ (Phạm Quang Trung) has completed a series of films and audio-visual projects across Vietnam, Portugal, Hungary, and Belgium. Working in experimental cinema, docufiction, and alternative narratives, his films uncover forgotten stories within shifting socio-political contexts, foregrounding queer themes and underrepresented communities. His practice often embraces first-person intimacy, fragments, found footage, and disrupted forms of representation. His works have been presented at major European and Asian film festivals, including Locarno, Rotterdam, and Tampere.
In 2018, his debut fiction short Ant-Man won the Most Promising Filmmaker from Southeast Asia Award at the 2nd SeaShorts Film Festival in Malaysia. In 2021, he directed the docufiction The Eternal Springtime, which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2021 and qualified for an Oscars nomination after receiving the Best Documentary Award at the 66th International Cork Film Festival and Best Director at the Baku International Film Festival. In the same year, his experimental film My Own Room received the prestigious Wildcard Award from the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF, Belgium).
Viet earned a Master’s degree in Documentary Film Directing from DocNomads (European Erasmus Scholarship) in 2021 and was also selected as a Berlinale Talents alumnus the same year. Since September 2022, he has been doing a PhD in the Arts (Doctoral Fellowship) at ARIA/Sint Lucas Antwerpen (KdG) / University of Antwerp.
Meet the cast and crew
Starring
Pierre Ghislain
Viet Vu
Producer
DOC NOMADS 8
Sound, camera and editing
Viet Vu
