Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 451 - How Far Would You Go To Tell Your Story - Film Director Duzan Duong

Transcript

451 - How Far Would You Go To Tell Your Story - Film Director Duzan Duong · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is crazy.
0:02
[SPEAKER_00]: What's up?
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in a Moto 6.
0:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the video with podcast.
0:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I am here with Duzan.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that how you pronounce it?
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Duzha.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Duzhaan.
0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it, Duzhaan.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cool name.
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Duzhaan.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Duzhaan is Vietnamese from the Czech Republic, right?
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how we ended up in a moto six together, but this is right before the film festival.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, Dujon's a blast.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I am here to talk about his film, uh, summer school, 2000 and one.
0:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Be a wreck.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, what a badass film.
0:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, thank you.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that you're like.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't like it.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved it.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
0:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved it.
0:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the film.
0:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's playing on Saturday.
0:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: At the Vitt Film Festival, so I like hurry down here to get this out.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode out because I really, if you're anywhere in Orange County or LA, you should make it down to Saturday to watch Dujon's film Summer School 2001.
1:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
1:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And are you from LA?
1:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm from LA,
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But I come down to Orange County quite a bit.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I had another interview before you, and yes, I'm here.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I say.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm asking too many questions.
1:14
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you can ask what any questions you want.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're here for us.
1:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough for just a little bit.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking you should bring like a lot of friends from LA to see the film.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what time is that?
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: What time is your film at, at 330?
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: At 330, okay, 330.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the problem is a lot of people are going to go see the stringer.
1:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know, Baldwin's film at 630.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the big, you know, the composition.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it?
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite a competition because one's a documentary one's a feature narrative.
1:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that as you said many people are coming for You know, unfortunately, that story goes right you will be the bigger dog at another festival and you know If you were gonna put the other film at 330, you know, so how did you get to the Czech Republic?
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: okay so we have to start like in the 80s it's when my parents met in Germany and as I suppose they kind of fell in love with each other and they were like they started to be making me but I was bored in Hanoi
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: in 91 and after like three years spent in Vietnam we moved back to Europe the this time to check my public which is like next to Germany.
2:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Why watch a public?
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: In Germany, you couldn't get back to Germany because after the fall of the wall, there was no communism anymore.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And the German people decided that they don't want to have too many Vietnamese there.
2:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So the next place to relocate was Czech Republic.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And my father, he went first, earned some money, and then we can follow him.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: come in, got it.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you grew up in the Czech Republic from age four all the way to now.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's been a while though.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you go back to Vietnam often?
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like this year I will, I will come to Vietnam, thanks to this film, and so I usually go to Vietnam once in three or four years, so my Vietnam is not that good.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not bad either, because if you can direct something like this, that means you understand a lot.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I just let them freestyle the people so so that I don't have to be burdened by the text.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I can like listen to people speaking and I can like get ideas like what they are talking about, but nothing too specific.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian, that's just the battle we get into that.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at what age did you say to your sub-R?
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make movies.
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it was never my dream to be like an artist or a director, because I saw myself in business.
4:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I pursued my career in economics.
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But during the time I was in college,
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't find the job, you know, so and during that time I was dancing a lot.
4:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I picked people dancing.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like copying it
4:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was really sad about it that I could not find even a job at McDonald's.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So I bought a camera and I started taking videos of me dancing and was trying to be the best dancer in the world.
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But it didn't happen.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So I decided to be the film maker.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's talk about that.
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I would point.
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you give up as a dancer when in your mind?
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I will point.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you say I'm not good at this?
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, now I have to give up.
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I was good kind of good, but I was I wasn't the best So that that was my like that's my like throughout my life.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been all my problem like if I'm not too good at it I'm in a board and I want to like do something else
5:29
[SPEAKER_00]: then who said you're a good director?
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what inside of you, because to make a movie this big, you have to have like this different attitude.
5:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, no, no, I can do that.
5:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is bigger than becoming a dancer.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, it's a much bigger willpower to get to the, yeah, see that level, right?
5:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like I'm always like stubborn So I'm not sure if I can be like the best director, but I have feeling that I can do something like it's like worth it Because I spend eight years making this film and I never like
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: told to myself that oh no I cannot make it you know so I'm just trying and this is my first film so you can see if I can like grow or just go down but right now I am I'm in a pretty good spot where I have some confidence that I can make shit yeah I mean I always say this
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Technically, um, you may or you may not know how to do it, right?
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not what's important to me.
6:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What's important is can you make me feel something?
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right?
6:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you move me?
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I was worried the whole time.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What is happening?
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What is happening?
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm walking in a movie.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm I'm living in a of a state of fear and then a state of relax.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, awesome.
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's, oh shit,
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: you care for the character.
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And to move somebody like that, Lucian, is a hard thing.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, hard thing.
7:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So my approach is always to be somehow truthful.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: With your emotions and traumas.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm trying to be very honest.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: when I'm making a film because it needs to be personal because otherwise you wouldn't spend eight years making a way no way.
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it comes from a lot of like my background, my family dynamics and my friends and etc.
7:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The community.
7:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, at what point in your development of the film, did you start to say, I'm gonna actually make this.
7:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be saying this right from the start because you are at the start, so it's not hard to it.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to head back the will to do it.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I believe that I can make it because I can be surrounded by very good people and get me funded or they believe in me or they help me develop the script.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was lucky because I had these people.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that I cannot like, I am quite positive and everybody who is also positive, he cannot like feel it.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So they can join me and I don't have to like persuade them.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I just have to ask them and they can say yes and they still stay for like the process.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did the story come from?
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's it's my first mail.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's super personal.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's my life.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my brother's life.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: My family died name hangs in or you that older.
8:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a brother.
8:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm both like a while.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you take into consideration all the characters on all the characters that are like the main male perspectives.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: but just a little bit of me or like most of me.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like mixing everything I know into a story that I believe should be like offensive.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you start with an idea.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so my first idea was like, I want to make a film about perspectives.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't like the topic of like, was my childhood traumatic with my parents not being around.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it wasn't my goal because at that stage, you are in, you know, convinced that it's your trauma, you know.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But as I was developing it, like I was writing this script for six years.
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And during that time I started to realize that I need to put more like family message into that and thanks to this it became a whole some project.
9:48
[SPEAKER_01]: six years of writing yeah that in itself is a it's a long time to to write but um I wasn't like starving because you know you cannot like normally write the project for six years and uh still believing yeah in a way bro so I did all of commercial as a DLP
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks to my background in commercial, I had a lot of like funds to be doing this, to invest my time into this project.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you do GOP in Czechoslovakia?
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Or right now it's Czech and Slovakia, I'm so sorry about that.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good for like the America.
10:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean people might be here right now, you cannot know.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we go up with Czechoslovakia.
10:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's Czech Republic.
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and Slovakia.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What did that change?
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It changed like after the fall, all the walls, or it was like 1991, I don't know if that's me.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think like that, but yeah, that's a long time ago.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm bad at the history.
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So would have it.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have known that.
10:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have known that.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, that's how we grew into it.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: With this, don't worry.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I had never heard of Santana before coming here.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You never hurt a bull toe six me for you came there
11:06
[SPEAKER_00]: right.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This is crazy.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so six years and the movie, the script is finished after six years, but when do you start raising money for it?
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have to start raising money like during the writing process.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, in Europe it's a completely different game because we don't have the big studios, the big finance years.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So we rely on the state funding.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I applied for like first draft of the script and you can get like 150k check crowds which is not very much and you start writing and then you apply for like a development farm.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: and thanks to this money kind of like finished the script like after six years and you can also shoot a teaser.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So we shot a very expensive teaser that looked almost like the film and we use this to like show the checks that this film can be good because if you say like virtual in no one ever made this kind of film where like most of the people are speaking just with the
12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: the economics of having film in check or in English, so I didn't care about it because we were state funded so we don't have like any investors that should be there.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole thing is state funded.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have to try a bit like we have to find like co-productions in other countries.
12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But these money are also like from state funds here.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So we this is like a check slow back.
12:55
[SPEAKER_01]: with the misco production, and with the mis, I mean, my combination with the mis, but we are based in Czech, you know?
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we also shot like a few days in Vietnam, but it's mostly like Czech money.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are all soft funds.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to pay back if you make money from it.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to pay back.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And
13:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They like that it's the topic is pressure and it's not going to leverage the commercial sign we can be very honest and it gives you a lot of freedom.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I want to do
13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: is I want to tie you know some American corporate actions because you have a different model but if you take the American money and you spend the money in check with public the money is like doubles you know the budgets here are very crazy but also the cost is very crazy yeah you know if you come to check with public at you got you know this American check with
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: this isn't the right place to do.
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It isn't.
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It isn't.
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the right place to do it.
14:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I watched the movie and I looked at every actor.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The two brothers are amazing.
14:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The dad, Uncle Fong.
14:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: All of the acting is wonderful.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you find these people?
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so it's not very easy to find a Vietnamese actor in Czech Republic, because nobody is an actor, you know?
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So...
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the only professional actors are the father and the uncle found, and the rest are like people from nail salon, grocery stores, and I like this because you can give like the opportunity to people who
14:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Who might be thinking hi, I want to try acting and we can like grab them Say they're talent and just transform it into like a character So everybody is so like first time acting mostly.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's even a little brother.
15:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah feels real feels like a train actor to America.
15:09
[SPEAKER_00]: He's fucking real because He's who he's playing you know
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: As a crazy, I'm like, this little kid that didn't act and he's a check kid, didn't we check kid, I'm sure he has no training.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking when I was watching, I was like, but he has it, he's got it.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the brother, the older brother, the heart, you could just see the tough exterior, but inside, we start speaking Vietnamese to his grandmother.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: God, I'm like, oh, it's just a different guy.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have to remember, guys, when he's speaking of being me, it's just, and when you look at his face, it's tough guy.
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, most of the actors they went through the similar events like in the film.
15:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So their experience doesn't have to be acted.
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It just needs to be relived, like you relived it again in front of the camera and from the director, but do you know your shit?
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So for instance this guy, Ken, so he also grew up without his parents for a long time and he came to check the republic to be reunited with them.
16:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has this kind of burden that he is acting about, so it becomes real.
16:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why you know Sean Baker, he lost to cast like misfits and normal people.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm kind of like falling in love with this process.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it takes a lot of talent to be able to pull that.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: out of an actor.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like George Clooney says, you know, uh, people say, oh, what do you, you know, what's the big deal with you?
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just a looking guy acting yourself.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's a try acting where yourself.
16:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Try acting.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Just try to be yourself on screen.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: See how hard that is.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what when I looked at the acting, that's how I felt like you pulled these normal lives out of them because that easy to just be your normal self and pull it out.
17:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and, and the way it's all put
17:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So it takes a really good editor as well, that's why we got two editors, and we were editing this stuff for like 13 months.
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were really lucky with all the collaborators who were willing to spend their time like extra mile, you know?
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They believed in the project, so they were like, oh, we don't care, like how long we edited, we just need to make sure that it's the best shit you can have.
17:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks to the editors, we very, like, got all the gems collected during the visually.
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And the rest is garbage, you know.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: The little boy, he had some problems with, like, acting.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes you get like 20 takes of him, but mostly the first and the last takes are the best.
18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So wait a minute.
18:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The first edit your three hour or your assembly cut, was you felt like a shit?
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we felt that there is a potential, but we didn't get into the core.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to combine a lot of like angles takes.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were really like picking the gems here.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have that very end.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a big shot.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a wide of the market.
18:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that real?
18:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you guys set that?
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at it and I'm going, that's crazy.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This feels very real that I don't want to give away the film.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to analyze my brain.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like a huge shot for a production.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So the thing is that as to set how much is it like from my life so this happened in my city in Hepp We had this marketplace where like only with them is gathered and after some time This place need need it to be like destroyed so that they can build a deep partner store
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So this takes our real.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got this check guy Milandaniak.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: He was friend with the Vietnamese community.
19:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So and he was a cameraman.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So he documented everything.
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So we contacted him so that he could give us like the very precious material of the, you know,
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: marketplace been torn down and thanks to this we could combine our own creations into it so you don't know what is real what it's like made up yeah you don't know what is the location of that last shock or what you built for the stalls and you know individual shooting yeah movie magic right yeah movie magic and you know you are limited with the budget so you
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: better you put the money.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because after I finished the film, I'm like, all right, wow, okay, because I thought that too.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I was like, he might have piggybacked the the shutting down of this market.
20:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all probably real, but the timing of everything, the timing of putting it all together in this movie makes it seem like a huge budget, you know, when you think about it.
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We would love to have a huge budget, but first film and 80% just Vietnamese and you're being funded by the Czech people or the Europeans.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It was at first, it was kind of hard to imagine to have this film made, but as we were still going on and still working on it, like the Czechs kind of fell in love with this.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were saying, like, finally, we are like meeting this community for the first time because until then, the only check Vietnamese interactions were just buying cigarettes or something just a transaction.
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They're buying a fake poomer.
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't know anything about their lives.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But thanks to this film, we open up and we show everything.
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: he's made the power film, you know, and also the power of community, power of community, and are there other Vietnamese check filmmakers in Czech Republic?
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but they are.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That emerging.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have a feature yet.
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was lucky to be you the first one, the first one to be to have the feature.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is a female director, Diana Kumbannui, and she's quite successful on the festival circuit.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So when her film comes out, it could be huge.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also about the community and it would be like partly animation.
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are some voices in Czech Republic.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm also like championing some new voices.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I don't want to be a director, like full time.
22:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I can also work a producer.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: or distributor, if I find the right purchase, so I'm not doing one thing.
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think as filmmakers we, we were a lot of different hats, but not everybody who are the ducking hat.
22:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you were the producing hat as a director, but it's hard to go the other way.
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and in most directors have that producing side of them, because you want to control it.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you need to know things what they cost and how it's implemented, right?
22:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're a bit nervous at me.
22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I don't know about your parents, but my parents, they reuse everything at least two times or three times or never, like, throw it away, never.
23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's part of my DNA as well.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I want to control the budget where the money is really put.
23:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to invest in shit that won't be visible in the camera.
23:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm really like fine-tuning the budget.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to the fact that I'm also a director, so I know how the shot looks.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So the rest is not invested in.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Just the tunnel vision and you put all the money in for the camera.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
23:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So what kind of distribution would this film get?
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so in Cherry Public, we might wear a good number for this kind of film, because if you have a debut feature, it gets like, I don't know, 3,000 K admissions, like, 3,000 admissions, which is not very good,
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So do you get to keep that money or you have to keep it back to the state?
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, you can you can so quite it with like the co-producers.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and along with the distributors and but you can keep the money.
24:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you don't have to choose your project.
24:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're all so it's a good business model.
24:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you have a quite not quite affordable film, but you are milking it with like, with your like skills to make a good film.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to make a very good film, and it can make money, but we also like knew that the marketing is very important.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So we market it as like almost as a comedy, you know, it looks, it has this summer vibe and we put in the trail like all the white people that were like in the castle, we put them with the interaction with the Vietnamese.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what we could like.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: market it right right and make it works make sense yeah yeah the idea of summer school 2001 in the beginning I was you know the first I don't know 30 minutes I was like I didn't get it and then understood right okay tell me yeah let me yeah let me translate for what I got right uh this is a summer that
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody basically got to, like, well, he was actually in school, summer school.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: The teacher, the young teacher taught these boys, boys of girls in this small check town.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it was like, everybody went to school that summer.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's summer school for everybody.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody got to learn something.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, listen, listen, yeah, listen, learn.
25:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the father.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, the biggest learner of something of this lesson is the way you ended the film was mad where to cry because I wish all parents can come to that understanding sooner than later.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, but there's this moment like something bad happens in the family and you start to realize that okay, so this is really not good.
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The death in the family.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why you have to like reconsider everything like every relationship, every like all the dynamics that is happening in the family.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it worth it?
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we might not be here like tomorrow.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's hurry down.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure you didn't six, eight years ago start out with that theme, right?
26:32
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was running away actually from this topic.
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, ah, no, I'm not another film about my father.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but how I feel like, uh, not very, like, drawn to this family.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But it somehow sneaked in and it took over.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it has no choice, you know, you have no choice.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no choice.
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no choice to be here.
27:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I don't know why I'm here.
27:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to be here, right?
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like our art.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to know.
27:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why we have to know.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So like that eight years of you digging for a story or the story or trying to break the story, as we say.
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: you break the story by eight years of like really digging and finally when you find it the story comes up you can't you can't you that it's not your choice you're going to it can't deny the drama that is put in the film yeah but I'll try to write it right away for it but I could have it at the end and so how did that affect your relationship with your father?
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: did he watch it yet?
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it had a hard, you know, we had a world premiere of this film in the very in the biggest cinema in particular, public, at the International Festival, Kaloj Vari, and there was like 1.2, 2,000 people in the hall.
27:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really you, and after the film we got the Standing Ovation, and then I was really busy about like everybody congratulating me and then my parents gave me,
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: to congratulate me, and he didn't have to tell me anything, we both knew because we watched the film, we just hacked, like for like very long time he didn't, we didn't have like any sort of connection, but you know, when Asian parent hacks his kid, it's something different.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mother she was like crying so, you know, I was feeling like, yeah, this is it, but yeah, that's that's my life, you know Firing right now, don't cry
28:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want that whole night, my son.
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, yeah.
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because there's a big commenter you make about, you know, being completely blind to your son and deaf to your family, you know, you don't, can't hear it, can't see it.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then something happens, you know, and then you turn around and you begin to see things differently, you know?
29:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And then God, like I said, this film shows that he's relatively young.
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it was probably my age and can still turn
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lesson for parents out there that are like stuck in old-fashioned ways that you skin still turn your relationship around with your children Yeah, like everyday Even if you're like 50-plus.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're better like 80-plus.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You're still in change.
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still change because I bet that they are really to change But that's all to try
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But you still got in on your mouth and your legs are gonna walk through them and tell them hey, I love you guys Yeah, and they wouldn't like oh my god, you love us.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it like poor evil?
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You never show emotion don't do that.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, that's who's weird.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: What's next?
29:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, so what's next?
29:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was busy developing more stuff.
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't want to be known as like the Vietnamese filmmaker doing the Vietnamese stuff.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But somehow the Vietnamese angle still is around.
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm preparing an anime.
30:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Los Bois, and it's about, you know, how the generation Alpha are stuck in this online world,
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that Vietnamese Sumerna?
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Vietnamese anime series.
30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So, love it.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The main character is Zang, who is a Vietnamese girl, who is not challenged by a traumatic experience with her parents, but more about the technology, but you can still feel the family dynamics in there.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But they have like, it's not like a retro film.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like 2013.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm imagining my community in like five six years and I hope it will be you know success You hope the film will be a success or you hope gen A a survives and they become successful
31:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I'm hoping for both, actually, because it's somehow connected, because then I, like, future audience, so I want to be able to speak to them, so I need to make this film really like also authentic.
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And another project I'm working on is Anthology series about the history of our people, when they first came to the Germany, to Czechoslovakia and because the people who came, they have still alive.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so they deserve to have this, to see this on the screens, because I think it would make them really happy to see like stories of their beginnings, so that these two big projects that are like ahead of me, right?
32:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a feeling I'm gonna say a lot more of you in the world that I'm in.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, the film world.
32:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I love more to to seeing more of your stories because this is really good.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to like, I don't want to be like just stuck in Czech Republic realm, you know, or Europe, I want to speak to Vietnamese audience as we are, you know, so yeah, and with summer school we are hitting cinema in January and
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people here.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
32:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited.
32:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Very, very excited for you.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And excited to see the next film.
32:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You have any questions for me?
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like, um, do like to live in the States, uh, because it's a culture shock for me.
32:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know why?
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me about the culture shock.
33:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not that I'm trying to deflect the question, but I'll answer your question after you, you tell me.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So my first big shock is I knew I knew that the, uh, this place is huge and you don't like get to walk around and get, get somewhere.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You just, you know, I around the box still.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is my first culture shock.
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: it's so big man like you're wasting so much time just driving around wow you know and I'm not like used it because it just takes like 20 minutes for me to get from you know to the city center from my home and I can go by tram and I can like do my emails during that walk or something but here you have to be like doing this maybe you can call but
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, really pretty for me.
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Mmm.
33:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I was born in the East Coast and my family moved to LA when I was one years old when I was like 50 years ago.
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I grew up in LA my whole life.
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent four years outside of LA.
34:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Three years in San Diego, one year in Japan because I was a US Marine.
34:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We're now 17 to 21.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the only four years I spent a bro away from L.A.
34:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest is how I moved around all over L.A.
34:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have spent a lot of time in Vietnam because my brother moved to Vietnam 21 years ago.
34:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So as a result, I've gone back to... I don't know, I can be kind.
34:33
[SPEAKER_00]: As I go to Orange County for me now.
34:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, but also I was in a business selling the goods.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a factory Vietnam.
34:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have it, but when I was very active for about 10 years, I traveled all around the US selling my product.
34:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It was fabrics from Vietnam.
34:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so it was textile from Vietnam, so I traveled all around the world and, you know,
34:56
[SPEAKER_00]: the U.S.
34:58
[SPEAKER_00]: living really outside of my house for a long time, but I use it as traveling.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to see all the big cities in America and some major cities in the world, but spent most all my life in LA, LA proper.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So you would just like me, but from America.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: anything else.
35:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, do you like producing?
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I love producing.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's very challenging.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very hard.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been a dream of mine.
35:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But I grew up in the business developing stories.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I thought I would be writing or, yeah, I don't say that.
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Directing is a very special animal.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to really be committed to it.
35:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have to be really committed.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it like perishing these careers, I think it's much easier in the Europe.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we don't have that many people want to be like, so what's bring, bring, bring out.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And the competition is not that fierce.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The funding is not that hard, you know, so if you are like emerging director, they want to break free, go to your rock.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It could do no.
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So for all of our European audience who are listening to the Vimmi's podcast, I want to end by telling you, thank you, Dujan, for coming out of Vimmi's podcast today.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a blast because we are literally at a motocix in a CD motocix or in Santa Ana.
36:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who paid for this, but this is a good, this is a lot of fun.
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I like this placement.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's like in the in the film center.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It is like the movies like the movies.
36:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so yeah, that's that's the police So I thought we guys times up Thanks again once again, and congratulations on our movie well made.
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a lot to John
36:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
36:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.