Nguyen Trinh Thi—Day One

Nguyen Trinh Thi’s trilogy on Indigenous cultures in Vietnam—Letters From Panduranga (2015), Fifth Cinema (2018) and How to Improve the World (2021)—explores the idea of landscape as a witness of history. These films employ non-linear forms of storytelling to interrogate representation in ways that point to, and ultimately subvert, dominant narratives.

This screening will be followed by a dialogue with filmmaker Nguyen Trinh Thi and Gallery curator Phoebe Scott. 

FIFTH CINEMA

Vietnam | In Vietnamese and English with Vietnamese and English subtitles | 2018 | 56 min | M18 (Nudity)

Fifth Cinema is an essay film based on a 2003 lecture by Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay, “Celebrating Fourth Cinema”, which proposes the need to identify an Indigenous cinema that is outside the traditional national narrative of modern nation states. He argues that it should also be distinct from First, Second, and Third Cinemas—Hollywood, European art house, and Third World cinemas, respectively.

Expanding on this proposition of a Fourth Cinema, Fifth Cinema is a deeply personal portrait of Vietnam, and what Indigenous cinema might be like from Nguyen’s particular perspective as a citizen of Vietnam and the world, and as a filmmaker, an artist, a woman, and a mother.

In the film, the artist’s own moving images are interwoven with found footage of popular movies, government films, newsreels, home movies, and YouTube videos, which reflects local, official histories and external viewpoints on Vietnam. In providing space for subjective and collective memories to co-exist, the film confronts issues in a Vietnamese context, but also in ways which are universal.

Fifth Cinema premiered at the 9th Asia Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art (APT9), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, since then has been exhibited at many film festivals and arts spaces, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019–2020).

Nguyen Trinh Thi (b.1973, Vietnam) is an experimental filmmaker and media artist whose practice has consistently engaged with the history of Vietnam. In particular, she is interested in connecting the moving image with sound practices, performance and alternative forms of storytelling.

Her works have been exhibited at the Asia Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Sydney Biennale, Jeu de Paume in Paris, Lyon Biennale, Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan, Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, the Singapore Biennale, and Rotterdam International Film Festival.

This presentation belongs to a three-part film programme that explores prevailing narratives concerning Indigeneity in Australia and Vietnam. It is conceived in conjunction with the ongoing special exhibition, Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia, that runs from 27 May to 25 September 2022 at National Gallery Singapore.

The other presentations in this programme feature the documentary Firestarter—The Story of Bangarra about the Bangarra Dance Theatre, a company of professional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers, as well as moving image works by the Karrabing Film Collective, an Indigenous media group based in Australia’s Northern Territories. 

As part of this programme, there will be free curator tours of the Ever Present exhibition on Sunday 10 July, 11am and 12pm. Please click ‘BOOK TOUR’ to register.