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Mot Khu Dat Tot

Blessed Land
Berlinale Shorts 2019
An old cemetery in the middle of a dune landscape: mother and son wander between graves in search of the resting place of the deceased father. Looking down from the opposing dune, a man watches them through binoculars. The dunes are now part of a golf course overlooking the city. The cemetery was sold, the old graves were excavated. The movements of the big fish in the pond are reminiscent of the eels in Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum. The man plays golf, and his young girlfriend thinks about plastic surgery. A re-zoning of towns and places in the course of society’s commercialisation. In elegant, carefully framed shots, Pham Ngoc Lan links the future and the present on equal terms. This narrative approach is enlightened by a different cultural understanding of life and death in the act of ‘being’. We do not remember, we are in our imagination.
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by Pham Ngoc Lan
with Minh Chau, Hoang Ha, Thuy Anh, Huy Tien Vietnam 2019 Vietnamese 19’ World premiere

With

  • Minh Chau
  • Hoang Ha
  • Thuy Anh
  • Huy Tien

Crew

Written and Directed by Pham Ngoc Lan
Cinematography Trang Cong Minh
Editing Pham Thi Hao
Sound Design Arnaud Soulier
Production Design Kelly Hoang
Assistant Director Pham Quoc Dung
Producers Ngo Dai Trang, Nghiem Quynh Trang

Produced by

Pham Ngoc Lan

Photos

Phạm Ngọc Lân

Born and raised in Hanoi, Vietnam. After studying urban planning at Hanoi Architectural University, he taught himself filmmaking. His short films have already been presented twice at the Berlinale with Another City in 2016 and Blessed Land in 2019. Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc is his debut feature film.

Filmography

2011 Chuyện Mọi Nhà (The Story of Ones); short film 2016 Thành Phố Khác (Another City); short film 2019 Một Khu Đất Tốt (Blessed Land); short film 2020 Giòng Sông Không Nhìn Thấy (The Unseen River); short film 2024 Cu Li Không Bao Giờ Khóc (Cu Li Never Cries)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2024