Vietnamese director Pham Thien An won the Camera d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, beating 22 other titles to the coveted prize dedicated to debut features.
It marked just the second Vietnamese film directed by a Vietnamese filmmaker to screen at Cannes, where it played in Directors’ Fortnight.
The Camera d’Or win brought forward the local release, which opened on August 11 through CGV, making it eligible for the Oscars race. The film will receive its North American premiere in Toronto, ahead of a planned release by Kino Lorber; Cercamon handles international sales.
Screen spoke to director An and lead producer Jeremy Chua from Singapore about the drama, which is loosely inspired by An’s own experiences and follows a young man searching for his own humanity.
Although it is not strictly autobiographical, how did your personal experiences of growing up in a rural Catholic community shape Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell?
Pham Thien An The shooting locations were Bao Loc, my hometown, and Di Linh, both in Lam Dong province — a mountainous area with a lot of mist, rain and muddy red soil, like you see in the film. Here the Catholic community is huge, everyone wakes up early to attend mass in the church and pray for a good new day. I felt lucky to have lived those experiences, so I could draw from them to convey feelings and create scenes in the most honest and realistic way. That was one of the crucial aspects in my film. That is why I brought my life into the story. It contains my concerns about my complex relationship with the Bible and my own humanity.
How did you decide on the title?
An I wanted a title that linked to the signatures of my hometown — the sericulture tradition [producing silk]. When I thought about the silkworm, I could feel its struggle to break out of its shell, which to me is magical. At first, I came up with Inside The Cocoon Shell. Then I thought I needed something more to convey a poetic and aesthetic picture and added the adjective ‘yellow’. In reality, the yellow cocoon is a rare type of cocoon that you hardly find in the region nowadays, unlike the common white one. The word ‘yellow’ added layers to the title.
Jeremy, how did you meet An, and what attracted you to the project?
Jeremy Chua We met at Cannes in 2019. An was presenting his short film Stay Awake, Be Ready in Directors’ Fortnight and I was participating at Cinéfondation l’Atelier with The Maw Naing’s The Women. An’s distributor, Lights On, invited me to his screening. His short provoked deep questions about life in a simple Vietnamese story. I was mesmerised by the way he constructed mise-en-scène and movement within a scene with an effortless minimalism that created so much meaning, dramaturgy and tension. We had dinner after the screening and exchanged ideas on cinema, and by the end of the night we decided to work together.
Is it rare for a Vietnamese film to have a foreign lead producer?
Chua We have produced films from all over Asia at [my production company] Potocol. We see ourselves more as a creative label for artistic exploration rather than a Singapore-centric production house. We want to get involved with all kinds of filmmakers we love. What was amazing about this team is that none of them were film-school trained or professional filmmakers. They are friends from the same hometown who love cinema and had a dream to make their own films. I’m lucky they trusted me to help them reach their goals.
What audience did you have in mind for the film, and did the Cannes award help to land a commercial release in Vietnam?
An I needed to be clear in what I wanted to achieve, and trust it would bring forward my message to the audience. If that belief remains big enough, the Vietnamese audience would support and put their trust in the film. The Cannes award was a great honour to me and Vietnam. It also helped to better promote the film and solidified my own belief. Slow arthouse movies are still new to Vietnamese audiences. My film is almost the first with this style so we need to spend more time and promotional effort to attract the audience. That said, there has been a lot of positive responses and anticipation at home.
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