Photographer focuses on traditional puppetry

Nguyen Hong Nga will hold a three-day exhibition of her photographer
featuring traditional water puppetry in HCM City starting on Nov.
2.

Mua Roi Nuoc Truyen Thong (Traditional Water Puppetry),
to be held at the Institute for Culture Exchange with France (IDECAF),
will have on display 50 photos Nga had taken over the years.

They feature the most popular works like Mua Rong (Dragon Dance), Mua
Phuong (Phoenix Dance), Mua Tien (Fairies' Dance) and Truyen Thuyet Le
Loi Tra Guom (Legend on Returned Sword Lake ).

Water puppetry, in which wooden puppets are manipulated over water,
originated in the Hong (Red) River region in the 11th century when it
was performed at festivals to pray for a good crop.

It is usually in the form of a skit depicting daily life in rural Vietnam , folk tales, legends, or history.

The art form is a unique variation on the ancient Asian puppet tradition.

Nga, who was born in 1956 in Quang Tri Province , is a member of
International Federation of Photographic Art and a member of the
Vietnam Journalists Association, Vietnam Photographers Association, and
Vietnam Theatre Artists' Association.

She won a B prize of
the Vietnam Photographers Association's Best Photo for her Buc Tranh
Que Ngoai (Picture of Mother's Hometown) in 1995 and the 2009 PSA
Portrait Competition Awards in the US for Thieu Nu Mong (A Mong
Girl).

Nga has held exhibitions in Hong Kong, the US ,
Canada , and France and published photo books like Suc Song Vietnam (
Vietnam 's Vitality) 1 and 2.

The exhibition venue is at 31 Thai Van Lung, District 1./.

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Young artist receives top award

The Young Talent Prize was awarded to artist Pham Tuan Tu on Nov. 1 in Hanoi.

Tu will receive a grant of 1,000 USD in cash and 2,700 USD for his solo exhibition where he will present his new pieces.

They include four paintings titled Bud, In Front of the Mirror, Gay and Uni-sex which are all acrylic on canvas.

He uses a reduced colour palette. With his greys, browns and
dim-yellows he creates an almost medieval ornamental background for his
highly emotional and intimate plots, according to Natasha Kraevskaia, a
member of the judging panel.

The sexually ambiguous
characters in Tu's painting are perplexing. Based on the titles of the
paintings, they are identified as gay or lesbian, but they are really
depicted as transgender characters in his paintings.

"The
viewer can see the same face, but we cannot say that it's a recurring
image. Each piece expresses different feelings: from relaxation and
dreams to fears and phobias," said Kraevskaia.

Born in
1981, Tu is a graduate from Hanoi College of Industrial Fine Arts. He is
a member of the Club for Young Artists of Vietnam Fine Arts Association
and has participated in a number of exhibitions in Hanoi over the
past two years.

He was chosen from eight artists based on aesthetics, relevance, context and originality.

The eight finalists have been exhibiting their paintings at the Fine
Arts College where their work has been on display to the public.

The competition website also functioned as a forum for comments and
discussions about the various works. Many remarks were submitted and
these discussions will help inspire up and coming artists.

The Danish Cultural Development and Exchange Fund will award a prize of
2 million VND for the best comment by the end of this week.

This year's competition drew the attention of artists from Hanoi ,
HCM City , Hue and various other localities across Vietnam .

More than 700 images were submitted by 165 applicants./.

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Japan’s symphony orchestra to perform in Vietnam

The Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (TMSO) of Japan and the
Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra will hold a concert under the baton
of Japanese famous conductor Honna Tetsuji at the Hanoi Opera House on
Nov. 7.

The performance will include Toyama Yuzo’s
Rhapsody for Orchestra, one of the most popular and favourite work in
Japan , and the Rhapsody Vietnam by Do Hong Quan, Chairman of the
Vietnam Musicians’ Association.

The Japanese and Vietnamese artists will also perform P. I. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor op. 64.

The Japanese leading orchestra then will have two other performances
in Hanoi on Nov. 9 and Ho Chi Minh City on Nov. 12.

Japanese violinist Tamaki Kawakubo will join TMSO in these
performances. She will play the Violin Concerto in D major op. 77 and
the Symphony No. 1 in C minor op. 68 of J. Brahms.

Kawakubo began violin studies at the age of five in Los Angeles ,
California , the US . She won the grand prize of the 2001 Pablo de
Sarasate International Violin Competition and shared the silver medal,
the highest award at the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Competition./.

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Green documentary film award launched

Germany’s Geothe Institute in Hanoi launched a contest on green
documentary film, “Climate Change-Changing My Life” in Hanoi on Nov.
1.

The VietDocs 2011 aims to create a playground for young
film makers to produce short films on the environment in Vietnam .

According to the Head of Goethe Institute, Almuth Meyer
Zollitsch, contestants in the age group of between 18 and 30, have to
submit proposals on their film. A maximum of 20 interesting proposals
will be selected for the second round.

The selected
proposals will be developed into films with a duration of not more than
15 minutes, with focus on climate change and its impacts on Vietnam
’s environment.

The jury will pick up 10 best
films to be showed at the European documentary film festival to be held
in Hanoi next June.

The first prize winner
will receive an award of 1,000 USD and an amount of 3,500 USD for a
longer film on the same topic. The film will be sent to compete at a
festival on Southeast Asian scientific film, SeaDocs 2012./.

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U19s win International Cup

The Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper's International Football
Championship Cup stayed in Vietnam for the second time after Vietnam's
U19 team defeated the Thai U21 2-1 on Oct. 31 in HCM City.

Despite being considered weak compared to their rivals, the host proved
that they could not be defeated by starting the match with effective
attacks from the very first seconds.

Nguyen Hai Huy's
opening goal proved their power in the first half. His 16.50m straight
shot made more than 10,000 spectators, including national head coach
Henrique Calisto, burst into happy and uninterrupted applause.

But Thailand were still a tough opponent throughout the
tournament. Their forward trio of Sokjoho, Hongthong and Anan forced the
Vietnamese players to work very hard to protect their net.

Thai tactics included rotating their positions in an aim to stretch
the Vietnamese defence to level the score. However, this effort proved
fruitless as they consistently had to back off to help their teammates
thwart threatening counter-attacks from the Vietnamese side.

Goalie Buu Ngoc worked hard to keep the Thais to one goal after
miscommunication between his teammates allowed a close-range shot by
Meesawad to be converted into the second goal of the match.

The sudden loss confused the Vietnamese players to such an extent that
Thai halfback Jungreed nearly scored a second goal a few minutes later.
But Ngoc continued with his heroics to block many other Thai shots
throughout the match. He was later voted as the best player of the
match.

In the 78th minute, Vietnam scored their
second goal in a rapid counter-attack. Van Quyet, who played in the
shadows for much of the match, passed the ball across the box to a
waiting Minh Tuan. His shot was punched out but the ball ricocheted to
Van Thanh who scored with ease.

In addition to the cup, the team was awarded 300 million VND (15,000 USD).

In the earlier match, the U21 Thanh Nien Newspaper team beat U21 Malaysia 1-0 to secure third place.

Substitute striker Hoang Nhat Nam scored the only goal of the
match from a free kick in the 82nd minute. The score would have been
higher if Huu Phat had not missed a penalty a short time earlier.

This was the fourth year the tournament was organised with
international teams. Vietnam 's first victory was in 2007 when they
defeated Thailand 1-0 in the final./.

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Vietnam wins silvers at world Karate Championship

Vietnam walked away with two silver medals from the 20th World Senior
Karate Championship which closed in Belgrade , Serbia , on Oct.
31.

Despite high expectations, national No 1 kata (performance) artist
Nguyen Hoang Ngan lost 0-5 to Yohana Sanchez of Venezuela in the
women's kata final.

After her 3-2 win over five-time
world champion Rika Usami of Japan in Oct. 28's semi-finals, Ngan was
widely expected to take the title since Usami was said to be the
strongest contender in the event.

However, all
predictions proved to be wrong when Sanchez, whose personal best was
third place at the world championship in 2004, defeated Ngan for her
first ever world title.

Ngan knew that silver was not her personal best, as she had previously grabbed many gold medals in high-ranked tournaments.

Usami and Croatian Mirna Senjug shared third place.

Earlier Ngan and her teammates Nguyen Thanh Hang and Do Thi Thu Ha
were ousted 0-5 by Japanese trio Inoue Kazuyo, Kimura Yoko and Sakai
Fumi in the team event

The teams from Italy and Spain took the bronze medals.

Vietnam 's only male competitor at the championship was Nguyen
Ngoc Thanh who was knocked out in the second round in the under-67kg
category.

The next event for the Vietnamese athletes will be the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou , China , next month.

Ngan and her teammates are shouldering a heavy burden to bring home a
gold medal for Vietnam . As a whole, the country expects to pocket at
least six golds in the continent's biggest sport festival./.

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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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