Children of the Mist with Diem Ha Le
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[April 12, 2022]In this episode, we feature a conversation with Diem Ha Le about her debut feature film, CHILDREN OF THE MIST, which premiered at IDFA and had its Swiss premiere in the Grand Angle section of Visions du Réel.
The film follows Dzi, a 12-year-old girl from the Hmong ethnic group in Northern Vietnam. During the Lunar new year, girls as young as Dzi become part of the customary practice of "bride kidnapping," where young girls are abducted by a boy who wishes to marry them and held for ransom while the families negotiate the price of the bride.
Dzi finds herself in a situation where she is forced to grow up and find her way of navigating between the Hmong culture and her own desires.
In this conversation, filmmaker Diễm Hà Lệ speaks about keeping a memory of childhood alive through film and shares with us insight into her relationship with Dzi and how she navigated opposing opinions as she bared witness to Dzi's abduction and bridal negotiations. Diem also speaks of the personal and practical challenges she faced while filming and how she was able to translate the complicated relationships and situations that were unfolding in front of her into cinema.
Moderating the conversation is Venice Atienza, whose film, LAST DAYS AT SEA, also shares an inquiry into the fragility of childhood and was invited to screen at Visions du Rèel last year in the Grande Angle section.
This episode was co-produced by Christina Zachariades in Brooklyn, Venice Atienza in Mumbai, and Aylin Gökmen in Zurich, with original music by Nayeem Mahbub in Stockholm.
HÀ Lệ Diễm was born in 1991 in the Tay community, an ethnic group in Northeast Vietnam. She studied Journalism at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Hanoi. Her debut short documentary MY SON GOES TO SCHOOL was awarded by the Vietnamese Cinema Association.
Venice Atienza (1989) is a Filipino documentarist whose curiosity is observing how life transformations are carried out through everyday mundane actions. She’s an alumna of IDFAcademy, IDFA Project Space and the European MFA program DocNomads. Her first feature film, LAST DAYS AT SEA, pemiered at the Berlinale and screened internationally.