The fourth biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival (VIFF) opens on April 2 in Orange County and will showcase more than 60 short and feature films, panel discussions and an special award to actor Dustin Nguyen (pictured), who co-starred with Cate Blanchett in Little Fish.
Event organizer Ysa Le said yesterday that films from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, United Kingdom, USA and, of course, Vietnam will be shown at various local spots including UC Irvine, Edwards Regal University 6 in Irvine and, for the first time, at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
At a press conference yesterday at the Bowers, Huy T. Tran, veteran co-chair of VIFF's screening committee, said he wants the public to know, “Boy, do we have a treat for you. I've been with VIFF since the beginning. These are the most outstanding films we've ever had.”
The eight-day festival opens with Footy Legends by acclaimed, up-and-coming Australian director Khoa Do, who will attend and field questions. Later, other screenings will include Sad Fish by Le-Van Kiet, All About Dad by Mark Tran, Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam** by Tammy Nguyen Lee, Saigon Heat by Andy Vu and Danny Do, Vietnam Overtures by Stephane Gauger and In the Dark by Nadine Truong and The Hot Kiss by Nguyen Quang Dung.
For more information–including show times, locations and more in-depth film descriptions–visit: www.vietfilmfest.com or call 1-714-893-6145.
**World premiere.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.