We are delighted to announce the following grantees projects from five rounds of FAMLAB Fund (Film, Archive and Music Lab), a diverse and exciting group of initiatives across platforms, cultures and geographies. A component of the arts programme Heritage of Future Past, the fund provides grant packages (£100,000 over the next two years) to projects that work with and explore Vietnam’s music and film heritage through contemporary mediums.
The grantee projects are:
Round 1
Future of traditions – a series of workshops in Hanoi with both master musicians of traditional music genres and contemporary artists working with traditional cultural elements.
Hanoi New Music Festival 2018: Make a Silence – discourse and performance programmes on traditional music of Vietnam and South East Asia.
Nguyen Ngoc Vu – a multi-media exhibition (painting, video, installation and sound) inspired by the traditional theatric art of tuong.
Viet Cine Corner – a library for Vietnamese cinema located at and managed by TPD, plus events and activities (screenings, talks, etc.) on various facets of Vietnamese cinema.
Round 2
Âm Nhạc Của Chúng Mình – a mapping and presentation of the songbook of H’Mong people
The Library of Southern Music – an online library of Southern Vietnamese traditional music forms.
Documentation of the Kadhar songbook – a mapping and presentation of the Kadhar ritual music of Cham people.
Âm Sáng – a solo exhibition of Nguyen Huy An presenting works exploring aspects of traditional Vietnamese music.
Round 2 – The Bolero Effect – a project around the connections between Bolero music and diasporic Vietnamese communities.
Họa âm xưa – the recording and live presentation of the 1960s/1970s Vietnamese songbook
Tôi Có Một Dân Tộc – the making of a documentary film on the music of the Pacoh people in Quang Tri.
Round 3
See the Sound – multi-media project by Fly on Dust Media House – taking in a documentary film, a publication and various community events – exploring memory and identity through parallel creative journeys in traditional Vietnamese music and underground hip-hop, featuring musician Ngo Hong Quang and beatboxer Trung Bao.
Saigon Cinema from 1954 to 1975 – research project by film writer/journalist Le Hong Lam on the films and film-makers of pre-1975 South Vietnam. The project will culminate with a book release and a screening programme of restored cinematic work.
Doan truong vinh hoa – feature-length documentary directed by Le My Cuong and produced by Thanh Nguyen (in co-operation with Vietnam Television) following a tuong troupe as they travel and perform through the Mekong River Delta countryside.
Round 4
Dust and Metal – a live-cinema project directed by UK video artist Esther Johnson and produced by Live Cinema UK. Integrating both existing archived film and new, crowd-sourced footage – both centred on the history of motorbikes in Vietnam and through decades – the project seeks to unearth (un)familiar cultural and social phenomena, and to bridge future present with the past.
After the Silent Tiger: Shooting the Indigenous Sound in Central Highlands – a project by Vietnamese moving-image artist Nguyen Trinh Thi, reworking a 1930s American production shot in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Featuring newly-filmed footage and new music written and performed by Jrai master musicians.
A Flatpack Festival project – a newly-commissioned audio-visual piece – with vintage Vietnamese rock ‘n’ roll as its starting point – bringing together contemporary music and visual artists from Vietnam and the UK.
Legends as souls of ginang and Cham music – a multi-component project by poet/artist Inra Jaka in collaboration with Cham and Vietnamese artists and researchers, around the Cham music heritage, encompassing a publication, audio archived materials, the creation of new musical pieces, and filmic documentation.
Liberation Radio – an immersive and interactive gallery installation that explores the dynamics between the history of cinema and that of a country. Through a multi-disciplinary approach that blends fiction and real-life, the work will feature contribution from Vietnamese sound artist Nhung Nguyen (Sound Awakener); UK writer, journalist and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, and video artist Esther Johnson.
Vườn Lài Wonderland – a participatory project that surveys and engages with the heritage of queer moving image in Vietnam. Undertaken by Queer Forever collective in conjunction with various communities, the project will be realised across multiple activity strands – including archiving, screenings, discussions and workshops.
Round 5
Where is it? It is here – an integrated project by the Dan Do group and artist Nguyen Duc Phuong to introduce the artistic practices. The project includes an exhibition combining music, drawing and installation, accompanied by public speaking events and in-depth workshops. A question and also an answer, the Where is it? It is here project's sequence of activities will be connecting the stories of culture, tradition and heritage with the most common things in life.
Future of Tradition - Whether or not heritage will be preserved and developed is up to the interest, awareness and approach of the young generation and how they will develop the heritage. The Future of Tradition project was able to perceive the reactions of the youth when it comes to the matter of heritage, especially of the young artists who are looking for their own voices through local artistic platform.
DomDom Lab & Residency - The project is a residency and experimental lab program that stimulate the merge of experimental music with the diverse forms and elements of traditional art, music, and theatre. Four young artists/artist groups will be given the opportunity to work in-depth with various types and elements of traditional Vietnamese music and theater arts, with the support of mentors to develop ideas, compose and perform new musical works during a 6-month residency program. This will be the first residency program in Vietnam that focuses on experimental music, with the first year’s theme being heritage.
Handle with Care : Vietnamese Archives Play Themselves - A collaborative project that promotes the use of archival films. Archived films are not merely movies, they are also property and knowledge kept by the dedication of the crafters, but are on the brink of being lost. The project will utilize archival film sources and approach movie studios to share moving images about the country and people of Vietnam.
Digitizing Hat Boi - a project implemented by the Community Cultural Discourse group, combining the activities of storing, digitizing and sharing resources related to Hat Boi over the centuries, as well as related publications and activities. With the participation of the Hat Boi troupe Ngoc Khanh, the project will make Hat Boi more accessible to young people and foreign audiences through digital platform.