French documentary on Vietnam’s history on screen

A documentary on Vietnam’s history is being screened at 55 cinemas in France, according to the French newspaper - Le Monde.

The film, L’Empire du Milieu du Sud (The Empire of Mid-South), is made
at a cost of 3 million EUR by well-known French directors Jacques Perrin
and Eric Deroo. It outlines the situation of a France-dominated
Indochina and Vietnam’s resistance wars for independence.

Le
Monde said the film makers spent more than ten years to research and
collect documents and films not only of France but also of Japan, China,
Australia, the US, Cuba, Russia and Poland for making this film.

Director
Jacques Perrin is known for his recent documentary – Ocean – that was
screened at the first Vietnam International Film Festival last October.

Earlier,
he made a success in co-directing a documentary titled Le Peuple
Migrateur (2001) on bird’s migration that was shot in many countries,
including Vietnam.

The co-author of “L’Empire du Milieu du Sud”,
Eric Deroo is a historical researcher and director who authored numerous
research works on Vietnam and Indochina./.

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Cross-cultural show presents French fashion

Hanoians will witness the beauty of French fashion when four Parisian
brands present their creations in the capital on Nov. 3 night.

As a cultural exchange between the Ile-de-France region and Hanoi
, the fashion show will allow Hanoians a glimpse of this integral part
of French culture and provide the French designers a view into
Vietnamese fashion.

The French brands set to introduce
their creations are Ambrym, Christophe Josse, Dormeuil, and the
children's label, Charabia.

"I have a special interest
in ethnic handmade fabric so I have visited some traditional villages
in the North to learn about the materials that can be used for my
artistic limited edition creations," said 25-year-old designer Gabrielle
Gerard from Ambrym.

Five Vietnamese designers, Kelly Bui,
Do Manh Cuong, Hoang Hai, Le Ha and Sy Hoang, will join the French
designers to showcase their latest collections.

Veteran designer Sy Hoang will present his ao dai (Vietnamese
traditional robe) collections. He will show his collections for both
women and children, who he says are the "generation preserving our
traditions."

Environmentally friendly materials are
the highlight of Kelly Bui's collection, while crystal, feather and lace
adorn Hoang Hai's stunning gowns. Young designer Do Manh Cuong will
present his feminine and sophisticated creations. And finally, Le Ha
will showcase her designs emphasising the activeness of modern women.

There will also be a performance combining contemporary dance and shadow puppetry during the fashion show.

The event, directed by French choreographer Fanny de Chaille and
musical director Christophe Chassol, will start at 6pm at the Hanoi
Opera House./.

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Festival features five French films

Five new movies showing in Hanoi this week are examples of French
cinema, known for its slow-paced philosophical art films with
interesting, even weird characters.

The movies in a variety of genres are features of the Country in Focus
section of the Vietnam International Film Festival which ends on Oct.
21.

The movies are Heartbreaker, Coco Chanel&Igor Stravinsky, Babies, Little Nicholas and Oceans.

Coco Chanel&Igor Stravinsky, directed by Jan Kounen, was chosen as
the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It is based on the
2002 fictional novel Coco&Igor by Chris Greenhalgh and traces the
affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky in Paris in 1920, the
year that Chanel No 5 was created.

The documentary,
Oceans, is an ecological drama documentary filmed throughout the globe.
It is part thriller and part meditation, with minimal dialogue, on the
vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.

It was
directed by Jacques Cluzaud, a cameraman for the movie Indochina , a
1992 French film set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s.

Another French movie, the 3D animation movie Arthur and the War of the
Two Worlds, directed by Luc Besson, opened the festival on Oct. 17. The
director shows the world that French cinema is not only all about art
house movies, but also successful box-office blockbusters, including the
very latest in 3D animation technology.

French
representatives at the festival are Coco Chanel&Igor Stravinsky
actress Anna Mouglalis, director of Heartbreaker Pascal Chaumeil, Babies
director Thomas Balmes, and a representative of the Canne film festival
Christian Jeune.

Two others, Francois Catonne and Mathieu
Poirot-Delpech, are jury board members at the Vietnam festival in
the feature film category and for short films and documentaries./.

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French virtuoso to perform recital of Brahms, Liszt

Pianist Michel Bourdoncle will treat Hanoi audiences a recital at the French Cultural Centre, L'Espace, next Friday.

The pianist will play four pieces including Chaconne for the Left Hand
by Johnnes Brahms, The Valley of Oberman by Franz Liszt, Overture and
Serenade for Left Hand by Sciabine and Rhapsody in Blue.

The 50-year old pianist began his musical studies in Aix-en-Provence .
He continued at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de
Paris where he won the First Prize for Chamber Music and the First Prize
for Piano in the classes of Genevieve Joy and Dominique Merlet.

He won the Acanthes International Competition in 1984 in the presence
of Iannis Xenakis. After that he received a scholarship from the French
government to study at the Tchaikovski Conservatoire in Moscow .

He was the prize winner of the Liszt Competition in Utrecht in
1986. Since then, Bourdoncle has pursued a triple career as a concert
pianist, a teacher at the Darius Milhaud Conservatoire in
Aix-en-Provence and an artistic director.

He created the International Festival Les Nuits Pianistiques which takes place every year in Aix-en-Provence .

In 2006, he established the International Pianistical Academy of
Aix-en-Provence. He has performed in many countries in the world with
orchestras including Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and l'Orchestre de
Chambre de la Radio de Bucharest.

He often serves as a
judge in the competitions of the Conservatoires Nationaux Superieur and
in various International Competitions. He will be one of the jury
members at the first Vietnam International Piano Contest in September.

He performed with the Hanoi Philharmonic Orchestra 2009 on the occasion of the French National Day.

The concert will open with 17-minute Chaconne for the Left Hand.

A chaconne is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era
when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short
harmonic progression.

Since Bach's time, several
transcriptions of the piece have been made for other instruments,
particularly for the piano by piano/left-hand by Brahms.

Study after a Chaconne by Bach is a piece by the early romantic composer
Johannes Brahms. The composition was first published in 1879 and is
included in Brahm's Piano Studies.

The concert will begin at 8pm. Tickets are available at 24 Trang Tien street , Hanoi./.

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Dang Thuy Tram’s diary published in French

The French version of “The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram” was published by
French publisher Philippe Picquier on August 20 with the title “Dang
Thuy Tram – Notebooks found during 1968-1970.”

In an article announcing the publication in France’s Le Nouvel
Observateur (New Observer magazine), the author, Didier Jacob, talked
about the journey of martyr Dr Dang Thuy Tram’s handbooks, which were
discovered by a US secret agent after he survived a battle during the
war in Vietnam.

The author described Dang Thuy Tram as an enthusiastic girl who was willing to sacrifice herself for her motherland.

He said that the French version provides more information about the
US war in Vietnam , which is usually presented in a one-sided manner
by the American media.

The diary was translated by
Jean-Claude Garcias, who previously lived in Vietnam for two years.
It took him 2-3 years to read and translate it into French.

Currently, Jean-Claude Garcias is translating another Vietnamese
book into French which tells the story of a child who lives in the
Mekong Delta, which is expected to become available to French readers
next year./.

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