
Phạm Nhuệ Giang
Directing
Biography
People’s Artist Phạm Nhuệ Giang (born 19th December 1957 in Hanoi) is a Vietnamese director and screenwriter. Youngest daughter of the famed director Phạm Văn Khoa, she is classically trained in piano and worked briefly as a construction engineer prior to enrolling at Hanoi National Academy for Theatre and Cinema in 1983. Upon graduation, she started working for Vietnam Feature Film Studio in 1983 as a producer and assistant director to Đặng Nhật Minh and her husband Nguyễn Thanh Vân. In 1996, she made her debut feature, “Bỏ trốn”(Runaway), and earned several accolades at local awards. Her next film in 2001, “Thung lũng hoang vắng”(The deserted valley) was a widespread hit; despite initial opposition from censorship boards, it clinched 2nd Best Film, Best Actress and Best Cinematography at 13th Vietnam Film Festival, a Fipresci Award at Melbourne International Film Festival, Best Director at the Vietnam Cinema Association Award (precursor of the Golden Kite). “Thung lũng hoang vắng” is often regarded as one of the finest works in modern Vietnamese cinema, and it cemented Nhuệ Giang’s reputation as a critically-acclaimed auteur in filmmaking. In the subsequent years, Nhuệ Giang mostly worked in television productions and short digital releases to focus on developing an adaptation of Nguyễn Huy Thiệp’s story “Tâm hồn mẹ”(The Maternal Heart). Conceived in 1996 after “Bỏ trốn” and took over 20 years to go into production, the film is her most expensive work with over 6.6billion VND in funding, but also her most successful at awards and international festivals. After “Tâm hồn mẹ”, Nhuệ Giang released her last feature, “Lạc lối” (Aimless) in 2013; she later spent more time on lecturing at the Theatre Academy and producing TV series. She officially retired in 2015. She has since occasionally given talks, chaired conferences and lectured on film studies.
Known For

At the house of a famous Chinese botanist teacher his daughter and a female intern fall in love with each other - a forbidden love that must be kept secret.
The Chinese Botanist's Daughters

A young woman struggles to move on from the consuming grief of her experience as a combat medic in the Trường Sơn mountains during Vietnam War .
The Somnambulist Woman

In the years following the American war a young woman from Hanoi teaches in a rural school in the south. There she meets a troubled young man, and they have a brief romance that she recalls wistfully years later in her unhappy marriage.
The Return

Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity for him to film many "Cinematons" of personalities from the Arab world and to continue his "Film Notebooks" from which he brought back 7 episodes.
Dubai Winter Diary VI: Light and Reflections

The dynamics of a Vietnamese rural village change when an urban woman returns to the village she originally belonged to and begins a love triangle.
Nostalgia for the Countryside

A mentally challenged man spends his days working as an artist's model and visiting the now-occupied house of his childhood, where his beloved guava tree sits.
The Guava House

Toward the end of 1946, residents from all walks of Hanoi struggle to avoid—and eventually accept—the possibility of a full-blown war.
Hanoi: Winter of '46

Sinh lives in an alley with her elderly mother and Hà, her daughter. When Toàn, an engineer, moves in with them, the mother-daughter relationship becomes tested
Love in the Alley
A software engineer develops a fondness for an online friend, unaware he’s the colleague she extremely detests.
Programming Language for the Heart

While still heartbroken after her new boyfriend leaves to marry another woman, Đan Linh gets into a serious car accident and is rushed to the hospital where she is treated by Phan, a distant and grumpy surgeon. Despite significant initial distaste from both sides, the pair soon grow a profound appreciation for each other's wisdom and bond over their shared experience of family turbulence.
Broken Space

Three teachers run together an elementary school for local Hmong children in a remote mountain village. One day, an incident turns their life upside down, revealing the secrets and feelings they have been hiding for a long time.
The Deserted Valley

Don Duong stars as a truck driver who falls in love with a young student girl in a roadside border canteen. Unsure about him, she returns to school but finally decides to throw in her lot with him. This decision forms the gambling motif in the film, a decision which causes her grief, when she later becomes the subject of his gamble.
The Gamble

When a post-war fishing firm fails to meet its expected demand, the chief accountant begins falsifying records and cutting down on wages paid to the already struggling fishers.
Standing In Front Of The Sea

The forbidden love story between a widower who had lost his son and a woman whose husband's fate on the battlefield during the war against the US imperialist is unknown.
A Nameless Eucalyptus

Leaving their village to earn a living in the big city, Tham and Quy's relationship soon suffers in the face of impoverished conditions.
Aimless

An old man dreams of escaping poverty and securing a better future for his family in retirement through winning a lottery, though luck is never on his side.
The Fortune Seeker

After Thi's mother died, her father was unable to raise her, so she lived with her aunt-in-law and grandmother. Thi's grandmother left her a ring when she died. While packing her things, Mrs. Mai discovered it and scolded Thi, causing her to run away from home.
Runaway

Thu lives in a village near the river with Lan, her single mother working as a fruit seller. Thu befriends a boy in the village, Đăng, who lost his mother at a young age and is thus mainly raised by his grandparents. As the two children bond, they find in each other the parental figures they have been longing for.