A middle-aged woman and her son visit her late husband’s grave - situated in a former fishing village she hasn’t been to in decades. In the cemetery on the sandy dunes, they wander around for a long time without finding the headstone. Has her memory eroded, or has the grave been concealed somewhere underneath the green grass of the new golf courses? It’s true, for the nouveau riche, land for the living to play on is better than land for the dead to rest at.
Blessed Land / Một Khu Đất Tốt
A film by
“Characters remain nameless and places are unspecified, reflecting a desire to express deeper, wider, communal experiences of loss and change, rather than merely document the transformation of a particular Vietnamese village.”
“Characters remain nameless and places are unspecified, reflecting a desire to express deeper, wider, communal experiences of loss and change, rather than merely document the transformation of a particular Vietnamese village.”
Phạm Ngọc Lân
Biography
Phạm Ngọc Lân was born and raised in Hanoi. He rarely left his city (both in reality and in his imagination) until college. Lân graduated with a degree in urban planning and self-taught filmmaking at 27. His short films included Another City (Berlinale 66th); Blessed Land (69th) and The Unseen River (Locarno 74th). Cu Li Never Cries is his debut feature.
Filmography
- Cu Li Never Cries – 2024 – 92′
- Giòng Sông Không Nhìn Thấy / The Unseen River – 2020 – 23’
- Một Khu Đất Tốt / Blessed Land – 2019 – 19’
- Another City / Thành Phố Khác – 2016 – 25’
- The Story of Ones I Chuyện Mọi Nhà – 2011 – 11’
