Trần Anh Hùng (born December 23, 1962) is a Vietnamese-born French

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

Early life

Hùng was born in

Mỹ Tho Mỹ Tho () is a city in the Tiền Giang province in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. It has a population of approximately 169,000 in 2006 and 220,000 in 2012. It is the regional center of economics, education and technology. The major ...

, South Vietnam. Following the

fall of Saigon The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Saigon, the capital of Sou ...

at the end of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

in 1975, he immigrated to France at age 12. He majored in philosophy at a university in France. By chance, he saw

Robert Bresson Robert Bresson (; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson contributed notably to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have le ...

's film '' A Man Escaped'' and decided to study film instead. He went on to study photography at the Louis Lumiere Academy, which trains cinematographers.

Film career

Hùng has been at the forefront of a wave of acclaimed overseas

Vietnamese cinema The cinema of Vietnam originates in the 1920s and has largely been shaped by wars that have been fought in the country from the 1940s to the 1970s. The better known Vietnamese language-films include '' Cyclo'', ''The Scent of Green Papaya'' and ''V ...

over the past two decades. His films have received international fame and acclaim, and his first three features were varied meditations on life in his home country

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

. Hùng's Oscar-nominated debut (for Best foreign film) was ''

The Scent of Green Papaya ''The Scent of Green Papaya'' (Vietnamese: ''Mùi đu đủ xanh'', French: ''L'Odeur de la papaye verte'') is a 1993 Vietnamese-language film produced in France by Lazennec Production, directed by Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung, and st ...

'' (1993), which also won two top prizes at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

. His follow-up '' Cyclo'' (1995, which featured Hong Kong movie star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), won the Golden Lion at the

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

. ''

The Vertical Ray of the Sun ''The Vertical Ray of the Sun'' ( vi, Mùa hè chiều thẳng đứng) is the third feature film by Vietnamese-born French director Trần Anh Hùng. It was released in 2000 and is the final part of what many now consider to be Tran's "Vietnam tri ...

'', released in 2000, was the third film in his "Vietnam trilogy." After a

sabbatical A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work. The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of ''shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According to ...

, Hùng returned with the noir psychological thriller '' I Come with the Rain'' (2009), which featured a star-studded international cast including Josh Hartnett and

Elias Koteas Elias Koteas (; el, Ηλίας Κοτέας; born March 11, 1961) is a Canadian actor. He is known for playing Alvin "Al" Olinsky in the ''Chicago'' franchise, as well as appearing in lead and supporting roles in numerous films. He won the Cana ...

. Hùng directed '' Norwegian Wood'', an adaptation of

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his ...

's novel of the same name, which released in Japan in December 2010.

Films on Vietnam

In France, Hùng studied at the prestigious film school Louis Lumière College. For his graduation project in 1987 he wrote and directed a short film '' Người thiếu phụ Nam Xương'', inspired by an old Vietnamese folk tale ('' Truyền kỳ mạn lục''). Following this Hùng made another short film, '' Hòn vọng phu'' (1989), before launching the feature film ''

'' (1993). ''The Scent of Green Papaya'' was acclaimed for its style and its beautiful images of Vietnamese life. To date, the film is the only representative of Vietnamese cinema to be nominated for

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

. The success of ''Papaya'' helped Hùng gain funding for the next film, '' Cyclo''. The film tells stories of poor people living in

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

(now Ho Chi Minh City), and was filmed on location there. ''Cyclo'' won the Golden Lion at 52nd Venice International Film Festival, and at the age of 33, Hùng was one of the youngest filmmakers to be thus honored there. Having depicted life in Ho Chi Minh City, Hùng turned his attention to

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi i ...

in ''

'' (2000). The main characters of the film are three sisters who idolize their parents' family life, before the truth is revealed after the mother's death. All three feature films were financed by Christophe Rossignon (Lazenecs film company).

Influences and style of film-making

Hùng's films are made so as to rebuild the image of Vietnam that he has lost when immigrating into France and to provide audience with another point of view on Vietnam while this topic has been long dominated by French and American cinema. The stories are based on Hùng's knowledge about

Vietnamese culture The culture of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Văn hoá Việt Nam) is highly multicultural. The early culture in Vietnam started with the Bronze Age Đông Sơn culture considered to be one of its most important progenitors for its Ancient history. Viet ...

and (in the second and third films) his first-hand experience gained from trips to the country.Tran Anh Hung as diasporic filmmaker
Tarr, Carrie (2005). In: Robson, Kathryn and Yee, Jennifer, (eds.) France and "Indochina": cultural representations. Marlyland, U.S. : Lexington Books. pp. 153-164. Hùng is strongly influenced by French cinema and from some European and Japanese filmmakers, namely

Bergman Bergman is a surname of German, Swedish, Dutch and Yiddish origin meaning 'mountain man', or sometimes (only in German) 'miner'.https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=bergmann People *Alan Bergman (born 1925), American songwriter *Alan Berg ...

, Bresson,

Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynam ...

, Tarkovsky and Ozu. Hùng's style of filmmaking is expressed through the claim: "Art is the truth wearing a mask" (interview originally in Vietnamese).Nghệ thuật là sự thật được đeo mặt nạ - Art is the truth wearing mask
Lâm Phố (2004) He denies the conventional story-telling style and pursues making films with a new language: "to challenge the audiences' feelings, making them enjoy the films not with the critical reasoning but the language of the body". As a banner of Vietnamese films, Anh Hung Tran, a French-Vietnamese director, broke the image of poverty and backwardness in the past American and French films with his unique camera images, showing the audience a Vietnam where tenderness and cruelty coexist. In Vietnam, Hùng's most famous "trilogy"—''

'' (1993), ''Cyclo'' (1995), and ''

'' (2000)—expresses feelings for the motherland.

Filmography

References

External links

*
Dan Bloom, "Norwei no mori" goes to Hollywood
RushPRnews {{DEFAULTSORT:Tran, Anh Hung 1962 births Living people French film directors Vietnamese film directors 20th-century French screenwriters 21st-century French screenwriters French male screenwriters Vietnamese screenwriters Vietnamese emigrants to France Directors of Caméra d'Or winners Directors of Golden Lion winners People from Mỹ Tho