Check out the BIGLFF website and the commentary on Supernaut.

"The focus of this new Festival will indeed be on “Sex Health”, a theme generally referring to sex conception, sexual orientation policies, gay theories, gender behavior, AIDS prevention, sex trade and society protection.

Desire needs to regain its identity as a natural attribute and a personal right. It's a discrimination to ignore sex orientation. Therefore, we wish our new film Festival can tackle Chinese sex education and topple the image of immorality Chinese homosexuals have had for far too long."

Vietnam recently had its 14th national film festival last November in Buon Ma Thuot City in the central highlands. It may be years until Vietam might host an international film festival and years after for an international gay and lesbian film festival. But as Vietnam sets priorities on the creative and technical development of its developing film industry, hopefully we'll be screening innovative work sooner than later.

Bad Mouthing the Chinese

One thing I can't stand is the spelling of Chinese names to fit the Vietnamese language. Nobody knows Zhang Yimou or Zhang Ziyi though are more familiar with Trương Nghệ Mưu and Chương Tử Di than their next kin. My problem is no so much the phoneticization in speech (different tonal systems, etc), but of consistency. Both are have the surname Zhang, but Trương and Chương are different. Take your best shots for Trần Khải Ca, Hầu Hiếu Hiền, Maggie Q, and Củng Lợi (Chen Kaige, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li.) The worst example is Lưu Đức Hoa (Andy Lau), although if you're Chinese, you know him as Lau Tak Wah, which is sort of close. Gong Li can almost be said correctly in Vietnamese so why the skewing of "Li" as "Lợi", when "Ly" is a popular surname in Vietnam? It's a bad habit and one they do not do with western surnames, or even Korean or Japanese. As for my name, when published, they tend to jsut omit the Streitmatter altogether and print "Tran". Catherine Jones is likely someone other than Catherine Zeta-Jones, dig? So when Vietnamese want to do google searches on popular Chinese personalities, the only results that turn up are those in the Vietnamese press. Hmmm.

Put it to the test. Scan today's article on Tuoi Tre about the reuniting of Zhang Yimou and Gong Li for the first film in 13 years in Autumn Remembrance. See how many names you can guess (Rob Marshall does NOT count).

More reading:
• BIGLFF
• Supernaut. BIGLFF
• VietnamNet. Central Highlands hosts national film fest