German contemporary arts introduced to Vietnam

Workshops, film screenings, contemporary art performances and concerts
in Hanoi, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City from Nov. 8-Dec. 10 will make
Open Academy 2010 different from other German art exchange programmes in
Vietnam.

At a press briefing on Nov. 8 in Hanoi, German artist Veronika
Radulovic, who has a strong attachment to Vietnam, said the project will
gather 10 key German artists who have developed major initiatives in
the contemporary arts and have close relations with Vietnamese
contemporary artists.

Sound, light and stage and space installation and arrangement will be hot topics at workshops, she said.

The
project, jointly held by Goethe Institute in Hanoi and Vietnamese
colleges and art centres, will also benefit the public, media artist
Maria Vedder said.

The German partner may soon repeat
the project by creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese artists to
perform in Germany.

Open Academy 2010, funded by the
state of Berlin, is part of “Year of Germany in Vietnam 2010”, which
marks the 35 th anniversary of Vietnam-Germany diplomatic ties./.

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German cinema on show in Hanoi

A week of international award-winning German films from the 1999-2009
decade kicked off on Nov. 1 at the Hanoi Goethe Institute.

Among the screenings will be Policewoman (2000), Head-On (2004), Go for
Zucker (2004), Longing (2006), The Lives of Others (2006) and Jerichow
(2008).

The Lives of Others, directed by Florian
Henckel von Donnersmarck, was released at the same time as the
screenplay was published. It is set in 1984 East Berlin . An agent of
the secret police, monitoring the conduct of a writer, who is also his
lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed in their lives. It
won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It had
earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards – including best film, best
director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor –
after setting a new record for having received 11 nominations.

It also won the Bavarian Film Prize and the German Film Prize. At the
Locarno International Film Festival it won the People's Choice Award,
while in France it won the Cesar for Best Foreign Film.

The movie will be shown on November 6 at 7.30pm.

Head-On, which drew widespread attention for focusing on Turkish
immigrants, was the fourth film by German/Turkish director Fatih Akin,
and marked his international breakthrough.

It was
awarded the Golden Bear, the German Film Prize and the European Film
Prize. It will be screened on November 3 at 7.30pm.

The film week is part of the celebrations to mark Germany Year in
Vietnam . Every two months a decade of German cinema history will be
featured. Each film, in its own right, was talked about, shocked and
impressed, and epitomised the era both in East and West Germany ,
according to organisers.

"In November we focus on the
new millennium, the time of the reunification of divided Germany ,
with all its problems," organisers said.

The films will have English subtitles and Vietnamese dubbing. Free tickets can be picked up at 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street./.

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Vietnamese culture delights German audiences

A colourful programme introducing Vietnamese culture was held on October
3 during a multi-cultural week in Leipzig, Germany.

The city’s Vietnamese community brought colourful folk dances and
songs to the festival, with the women wearing Vietnam’s traditional
long dress, the ao dai. The performance, which was opened by the mayor
of Leipzig, Andreas Muller, received a warm response from the
audience.

Pham Van Toan, First Secretary of the
Vietnamese Embassy in Germany, underlined the significance of the
event, which took place as both countries celebrate the 35th
anniversary of diplomatic ties.

He said it has helped
to portray Vietnam’s culture and its people to the German people,
preserve and promote the national cultural identity of the Vietnamese
community in Germany and strengthen solidarity and understanding
between Vietnamese and foreigners.

Earlier, the
Vietnamese community in Leipzig had worked with the local
authorities to put an exhibition of photos taken by Vietnamese and
German photographers, from September 20-Oct. 2./.

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German reunification on screen in Vietnam

Seven films on the reunification of the former East and West Germany
will be focus of the “60 years of German cinematography” programme in
Hanoi from September 6-12.

A highlight is “Germany,
Germany” by director Peter Fleischmann, documenting with impressive
snapshots the mood in the former East and West Germany during the first
year after the collapse of the Berlin wall.

In the
film, the German film director speaks with workers, public employees,
pensioners and the unemployed and listens as they describe their
feelings on the changes and raise their concerns about the future.

Fleischmann is one of the “Jungen Wilden” (wild young ones), who
influenced German cinema in the 60s and 80s. His films take a critical
view of society and are concerned with the problem of forced
assimilation of the individual into an uncomprehending environment. He
was honoured in 2010 at the Munich Film Festival with a lifetime
achievement award.

The overall series on 60 years of
Germany cinema takes place bimonthly, featuring each decade of the
Germany cinema history through the most notable films of that decade.

The programme is provided by the Geothe Institute within the framework of “Germany Year in Vietnam”.

Audiences are offered chances to enjoy these fascinating movies free every evening at the Goethe Institute./.

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