EXCLUSIVE: Venice Critics’ Week title Don’t Cry Butterfly has been boarded by CJ CGV Vietnam for distribution in Vietnam.
Affiliated with Korea’s CJ Group, CJ CGV Vietnam additionally distributed the Vietnamese-language Digicam d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell final yr.
Don’t Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year outdated housewife, Tam, who learns by means of reside TV that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then makes an attempt to voodoo her husband again into love.
The debut characteristic by Duong Dieu Linh could have its world premiere on the Venice Critics’ Week on September 3 earlier than arriving on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition on September 10.
Don’t Cry Butterfly is a Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-Philippines co-production. Korea’s Barunson E&A picked up world gross sales rights to the title forward of the Cannes market this yr.
“The thought for this characteristic began 10 years in the past, after I got here again to Vietnam to make my first brief movie,” Duong advised Deadline. “It was a brief movie a few mom and daughter, with the daughter having a relationship with a married man. The mom goes to a voodoo grasp who tries to carry out a ‘chopping future’ ritual for the connection. It was a brief experimental movie.”
Duong highlighted the ladies in her life — her mom, aunties and cousins — for sparking her curiosity in making movies about girls, particularly middle-aged girls.
“Rising up, I watched lots of Vietnamese movies and plenty of confirmed light and devoting girls taking good care of the household, however they all the time ended up getting abused, cheated on or simply not handled very properly by males,” Duong stated. “After I was making these brief movies, I used to be looking for a solution for why girls must endure a lot.”
Duong stated that she is especially impressed by the visible kinds in Asian excessive cinema, pointing to the movies of Japanese administrators Shinya Tsukamoto, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sion Sono, in addition to Korean auteurs Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-duk. She can be impressed by physique horror works from Andrzej Żuławski, David Cronenberg and John Carpenter.
Most of Duong’s brief movies — together with Don’t Cry Butterfly — often characteristic non-trained or first-time actors. The solid of Don’t Cry Butterfly consists of Le Tu Oanh, Nguyen Nam Linh, Le Vu Lengthy and Bui Thac Phong.
Duong stated: “I wish to solid individuals who have a sure reference to the characters I write. After I speak to them, we learn by means of the script and dialogue collectively. We then speak loads concerning the characters — who they’re, what their day by day life is like and the way they’ve grown up. With considered one of my actors, he even ended up writing and maintaining a diary because the character throughout manufacturing.”
The movie is produced by Tan Si En (Momo Movie Co), Wilfredo C. Manalang (FUSEE), Nguyen Mai Ka (Kalei Movies) and Yulia Evina Bhara (KawanKawan Media).
