Their Paths Ran in Parallel Across the Miles

Người kiến (The Ant-Man)
Việt Vũ, Vietnam, 2018, 27 min. Vietnamese with English subtitles

Thân Thể Rừng Thiêng (Landscape of Our Body)
Trâm Anh Nguyễn, Vietnam 2024, 19 min. Vietnamese with English subtitles

Người Chó, Chó Người (Man Dog, Dog Man)
A Sông Collective, Mai Huyền Chi, Vietnam 2023, 6 min. No dialogue

Bồng Bềnh (Buoyant)
Đoàn Thanh Toàn, Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc, Vietnam 2023, 20 min. No dialogue

Nước Lành Mang Bệnh (Healthy Water with Diseases)
Quế aka Nguyễn Đức Hùng, Vietnam 2024, 6 min. Vietnamese with English subtitles

Screening in collaboration with Leipzig Art Residency (LIA)

Moving through memories and shifting forms, these four short films trace the thresholds between humans and non-humans, the spiritual and material, past and present. The Ant-Man portrays the search for freedom, depicting the daily life of a homosexual man whose body is inhabited by ants. Landscape of Our Body is a journey of the sacred and the corporeal through a meditation between deviant bodies and nature. In Man Dog, Dog Man a chain of surreal events links a man walking a dog, a nose that turned into a DJ, and villagers who metamorphose through dancing. Buoyant is a tale of a fisherman and a mermaid that draws aesthetic inspiration from the drag community in Sài Gòn, where eroticism, fantasy, and joy serve as strategies of resilience. Healthy Water with Diseases captures the lingering ghosts of war through mosquitoes. Initially screened by Cinema Con Nhà Nghèo and A Sông Collective at Nổ Cái Bùm Festival 2024, the films ultimately ask the question if understanding is necessary to feel connected. (TO)