Season of Guavas is the story of a simple-minded man who manages to earn some money by posing for the students at Hanoi's art school. He lost his mental faculties after falling off the guava tree that reigned over the garden of his family home - he has been locked in his childhood memories ever since. Immediately after the withdrawal of the French army, the house was expropriated by the state and sold to a top senior civil servant. Obsessed with the idea of returning to his old home, Hoa breaks into its garden and, unintentionally, frightens the daughter of the civil servant...

Director

Born in 1938 at Hue, Dang Nhat Minh, who started his career in 1965 as a documentary-filmmaker, has made numerous films set against the backdrop of Vietnam's turbulent history. His 1994 Tro ve (The Return) follows the fate of former boat people sent back to Saigon only to discover the negative aspects of the new free economy. In 1995, he made Thuong nho dong que (Nostalgia for the Countryland), which picked up awards at Nantes and Rotterdam Film Festivals. This was followed by Ha Noi: Mua dong nam 1946 (Hanoi Winter 1946), a sophisticated portrait of Ho Chi Minh as well as the war of independence against the French. A writer, journalist, Dang was also the 10-year general secretary of the "Vietnam Cinema Association" and is considered one of Vietnam's leading filmmakers, who helped put young Vietnamese cinema on the world film map.

1980 Thi xa trong tam tay (The Town Within Reach)
1984 Bao gio cho den thang muoi (When The Tenth Month Comes)
1987 Co gai tren song (The Girl On The River)
1994 Tro ve (The Return)
1995 Thuong nho dong que (Nostalgia for Countryland)
NatPaq Prize at Rotterdam
Audience Prize at Nantes
1997 Ha noi: mua dong nam 1946 (Hanoi Winter 1946)
2000 Mua oi (The Season of Guavas)
Don Quijote Prize of the FICC/IFFS at Locarno

4 questions to Dang Nhat Minh

1) Why did you choose a non-professional actress for the role of the female student who welcomes Hoa back in his family home?

Because I needed vitality and purity on her face. I wanted her to be a light in the dark, a hope, my hope for the future generations. Her face, her eyes suffice to convey everything I expect from the younger generations, all the human values I hope they will keep and nurture in their heart, despite the lures of modern life. What I also say is: Don't judge young people by their looks. You need to get a glimpse of their soul first.

2) Is it a utopian expectation?

No, it's not. If we don't trust the younger generations, what will grow out Vietnam? We need to counter-balance despair with hope. Of course, young people are not all like those in my film, but some are.

3) Can you tell us more about your activities as general secretary of the Vietnam Cinema Association?

I worked in this position for 10 years. We tried to do many things for the advancement of cinema in Vietnam. We tried to get more subsidies from the government for young filmmakers. We set up workshops inviting directors and scriptwriters from abroad, such as Robert Kramer, whom I admired and became a very good friend of. But the activities in this association took up a lot of my time so I decided to quit two months ago, to dedicate myself to writing and directing.

4) One of your previous films, Nostalgia for the Countryland (1995), was co-produced by Japan's NHK. Was it a way of changing production rules in Vietnam?

I did not choose to co-produce the film with Japan. In fact, the NHK producers (among whom Makoto Ueda, co-producer of Fruit Chan's Little Cheung) came to me, and told me that they had chosen me to be the director of their co-production project with Vietnam. I was free to write the script, which I did in one month, the story of a woman who returns to a rural village where a poetry-loving boy lives. Then the Japanese producers came back and completed a co-production deal with the Vietnamese. The film was screened at NHK's 1st Asian Film Festival in 1995.

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