Talented movie maker receives Korean award

September 02, 2013 - 01:50 PM

Well-known Vietnamese director Dang Nhat Minh has received the Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Film Award at the Gwangju International Film Festival which is being held in the Republic of Korea.

Well-known Vietnamese director Dang Nhat Minh has received the Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Film Award at the Gwangju International Film Festival (IFF) which is being held in the Republic of Korea.

Launched in 2011, the annual award aims to encourage filmmakers to address hot social issues, such as human rights, peace, freedom and nature.

It is named after the late Korean President Kim Dae-jung who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and is presented at the IFF.

At the awards ceremony on August 29, late President Kim’s wife Lee Hee-ho conferred the noble prize on Director Minh who said he was extremely proud to receive the honour.

According to Korean Heral newspaper, Minh has gained an international reputation for his Vietnam War films characterized by the hard daily life of the poor or underprivileged in society.

Born in 1938 in Hue, a small Vietnamese village, he began making documentaries in the 1960s and became the first Vietnamese to win the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture in 1999. Minh served as general secretary of the Vietnam Cinema Association and was awarded the Vietnamese government’s Ho Chi Minh Award in 2007 for his cinematographic works.

His films “When the Tenth Month Comes” (1995) and “Nostalgia for the Countryside” (1984) were screened at the Gwangju film festival and were warmly received by Korean audiences.

One of his latest works, “Do Not Burn” (2009), based on a diary kept by Dang Thuy Tram, a young female medical doctor who served at a field hospital of the Vietnam National Liberation Front, won the audience prize at the 19th annual Fukuoka Film Festival in 2009.

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