HN, HCM City host 4th Euro film festival

HN, HCM City host 4th Euro film festival (03-05-2005) Viet Nam’s fourth European Film Festival will take place this week, featuring screenings in Ha Noi and HCM City of films from 14 EU nations. The festival is the centrepiece of a series of cultural events celebrating Europe day on May 9, organised by the Delegation of the European Commission and European Union members’ embassies in Ha Noi. Fourteen recent critically acclaimed and award-winning EU films have been selected for screening from May 6-20 in Ha Noi and May 11-23 in HCM City. Since the first festival in 1999 this biennial event has served to promote understanding between Vietnamese and EU citizens, as well as showcasing European cinematography in Viet Nam. This year, a broad selection of genres will be presented, including drama, adventure, comedy and documentary. The festival will also feature films from two new EU members, the Czech Republic and Poland. The Czech film, Divided the Wall, is a drama set in a small town under German occupation, during the last years of the Second World War. Josef and Marie yearn to have children, but confronted with Josef’s sterility, they find a surrogate child in David, a young Jewish man whom they befriend and offered refuge to. Thus begins a dramatic fight for survival. In the story – based on real events – diverse motives underlie ostensibly heroic acts, and the moral ambiguity engendered by war is explored, challenging our instinct to pass categorical judgements on characters for their…