Trần Văn Thủy
Trần Văn Thủy is an acclaimed Vietnamese documentary film director. He has directed over 20 short documentary films.[1]
His work has often proven controversial; his 1987 film The Story of Kindness or How to Behave, which dealt with the legacy of the Vietnam War and the suffering of the Vietnamese and American people in that conflict, was banned for a time by the Vietnamese government. Nonetheless, his reputation as a gifted filmmaker resulted in the Vietnamese government commissioning him a decade later to create a followup to the film, The Sound of the Violin in My Lai.
Biography
Tran Van Thuy was born in 1940 in Nam Dinh, Vietnam. He was educated in cinematography at Vietnam Film School. For five years thereafter he lived as an anthropologist with the nomadic Khu Sung people, until the war broke out.
After a stint as a combat cameraman, Tran Van Thuy proceed in 1972 to further his cinematographic education at the Moscow Film College under Roman Karmen. Since 1977 he has worked for the Vietnam Central Documentary Film Unit and Vietnam Cinema Association. He has also worked with Britain's Channel 4 and Japan's NHK.
Tran Van Thuy's films have received widespread acclaim. The honors he has received include the Golden Dove Prize and the Silver Dove Prize at the Dok Leipzig film festival and the Silver Lotus Prize and Best Director Prize at the Vietnam Film Festival. He was awarded the Best Documentary Prize at the Asia Pacific Film Festival in year 2000 for The Sound of the Violin in My Lai. His other films include My People, My Village (1970), Betrayal (1979), Hanoi in One’s Eye (1982), The Blind Masters Examining The Elephant (1990), and Tolerance for the Dead (1994).