TWIN PILLARS A Documentary Film Proposal. PO BOX 736, south freeport, me

Transcription

1 TWIN PILLARS A Documentary Film Proposal

2 TWIN PILLARS Perna Content, Indochina Arts Partnership and many volunteers have already done so much of the work, filming, translating, editing of Twin Pillars. We are now seeking financial and production partners to help us finish these two films about two of Vietnam's most important artists, Tran Van Van Can and Nguyen Tu Nghiem. This project has been in the making since 1992 when David Thomas and his friends began filming Vietnam s Masters of Vietnamese Contemporary art.

3 TWIN PILLARS THE STORY WITHIN THE STORY They were getting old.. We had to do something or their voices would be lost forever. These men were the last of their generation of artists, the generation that began Vietnamese fine art. Before them there was religious art, court art, folk art and handicrafts. My good friend Nguyen Ba Chung convinced me that this should be our next big project. We were coming off the heals of the enormously successful As Seen by Both Sides exhibition and were working on the Seven Pillars exhibition. Three of the seven pillars were still living so we would go to Vietnam and film them. It was 1992 and the economic conditions in Vietnam were simply terrible. There was no way the Vietnamese could do this on their own. I couldn t afford to hire a professional film crew so I enlisted four close friends to help. Nguyen Ba Chung agreed to conduct the interviews, friend and former CBS producer Helen Pomeroy agreed to come and produce the shooting and long time friend and patron of the IAP Jeri Bemis agreed to come along as our sound person. That was our crew. We managed to secure a small grant from the TIDE Foundation, enough to cover most of our out of pocket expenses. Because this was still a time that the U.S. government still had a trade embargo against Vietnam and of course no diplomatic relations we had to work double hard to get visas and go to Vietnam through Bangkok, Thailand. And who knew what the Vietnamese government would really allow us to do once we were there with all of our taping equipment. Would they even let us take the tapes back out of Vietnam? David Thomas

4 THE LOST TAPES We landed in Hanoi on one of the hotter summer days in We were met with representatives from the Ministry of Culture who were a great help to us. For the next three weeks we worked very hard to do the best job we could. In spite of the fact that none of us really knew what we were doing, I think we managed to come away with some very valuable tapes. We had managed to get lengthy interviews with Tran Van Can and Nguyen Tu Nghiem in their studios in Hanoi As our three weeks came to an end, our Ministry of Culture friends managed to get us permission to take out a dozen High 8 tapes. We returned back to the States and put the tapes in a box to await funding to edit them proved to be far too early for anyone to even consider making a film about these Vietnamese artists. Vietnam was still just a war to most Americans. So the tapes stayed in their box and were forgotten and sadly they eventually were lost and scattered. Cut to 2014: We came to realize the tapes might be lost forever. Needless to say, we were crushed that the precious last interviews with Tran Van Cam and Nguyen Tu Nghiem were gone -possibly forever. Twenty-two years after the films were originally made a concerted and dogged effort was put forward to find the lost tapes of Tran Van Can and Nguyen Tu Nghiem. Slowly the clues to the tapes whereabouts began to reveal themselves. A few here and a few there. After a lot of hard archival and detective work we were able to locate and recover most of the tapes. Now the tapes have been digitized, translated into English. A very special thanks to: Nguyen Ba Chung, Helen Pomeroy, Jeri Bemis, De Pham, the Ministry of Culture in Vietnam, Bill Perna, and La Ho Thi Minh Khue.

5 BACKGROUND In spite of a rich four thousand history, the fine arts did not exist in Vietnam until the French began the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l Indochine in Until then Vietnamese craftsmen created numerous beautiful religious statues, rich tapestries and other handicrafts for the royal court and every-day use and the village meeting houses (called the Dinh) were fancily decorated with elaborate woodcarvings, but there was no art for arts sake. Begun by the French during their colonial rule over Vietnam (1888 until 1954), the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l Indochine was begun to train Vietnamese craftsmen to produce handicrafts for export to Europe. The school s first director, Victor Tardieux, quickly saw that Vietnamese artists were capable of far more and encouraged the artists to find a Vietnamese voice. The artists in this film, Tran Van Can, Nguyen Tu Nghien are two of the first students to graduate from the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l Indochine and are much revered by today s contemporary artists in Vietnam as the fathers of modern Vietnamese painting. Tran Van Can ( ) is best known for his depiction of every day life in Vietnam. He worked primarily in lacquer, oil and woodcut and won first prize at the National Art Exhibitions in 1960, 1967 and He went on to become the director of the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l Indochine ( ) and general Secretary of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association (( ), and in 1983 became President of the Vietnamese Association of Fine Arts. His 1943 oil painting titled Em Thuy (Little Sister Thuy) is considered by many to be the Mona Lisa of Vietnam. Nguyen Tu Nghiem was born on October 20, 1919, and is the last living member of his generation of Vietnam s first great painters. Although he is crippled by the effects of Parkinson s disease today he still manages to continue his passion for painting. Among his favorite subjects are festivals, the zodiac and portraits. As Hong Kong critic Jeffrey Hantover said, Nguyen Tu Nghiem is an artist who draws inspiration from a very deep well, but his art is deceptively simple, its refinement hidden under a veil of child-like innocence. And in his own words, To me, art, painting is a natural need. If I do not paint, I feel in poor health. Whenever I finish a painting, I feel in high spirits and better shape. In 1996, Nghiem was awarded Vietnam s highest honor the Ho Chi Minh Prize in the Fine Arts.

6 Please join us and help us complete this film. Contact us to find out how we can work with you to create a package that meets your goals Film Credit 1000 TBD 500 TBD 150 TBD

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