Phạm Anh Khoa

When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her child home.

In the remote, shoreline Duong Son Tavern, the beautiful landlady Kieu Thi (Thanh Hang) lures weary travellers, bandits and officials into her establishment with the help of her three stunning hostesses. But rather than sell themselves, the girls rob and murder their guests, hording a growing pile of gold for a rainy day. In their latest haul, however, the women discover the bound and desperate Linh Lan (Tang Thanh Ha) hidden in a coffin. She begs them to spare her life and train her in martial arts, so she can kill evil general Quan Du, who murdered her family. Kieu Thi agrees, and takes Linh Lan under her wing, but it soon transpires not everyone is who they originally claimed to be.

The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. The artist and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics. The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth - having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam - finds a United Nations scientists who has washed ashore after teh world’s last nuclear battle. By weaving together footage from Bidong’s past with a narrative set in its future, Nguyen questions the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.

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