Video Mondays [vid-ee-oh muhn-deyz] noun; – a weekly blog series in which VTP attempts to save readers from the Monday doldrums by offering a selection of informative/insightful/interesting online videos. Videos may be Vietnam-related, current event-inspired, or just whatever VTP’ers are into at the moment.
For the inaugural installation, we bring you two videos. The first is the more serious of the two selections. “Home for Hermit,” a short documentary by UC Davis student Vincent Trinh, was a winner at the 2011 UC Davis Asian American Film Festival. It’s a brief meditation about cultural identity and re-connecting to our roots (Hey! That’s kind of like what OneVietnam is about too!)
Video brought to our attention by Andrew Lam, Vincent Trinh blogged about at Myx.tv
The second piece is…a little off-kilter. It’s the pilot episode for a prospective comedy called “Banh Mi,” directed by Tony Le, and it screened earlier this year at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in Southern California.
Replete with hipster references and characters of questionable values, the pilot of Banh Mi lays the framework for a sitcom about two white guys fumbling through what they think is cuisine/cultural authenticity and the disgruntled Asian guy that decides to help them out. There’s some swearing in it, some suspicious substances, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you’ll have to wait till the next Video Monday for something a little tamer (maybe).
Banh Mi Comedy Pilot from Tony Le on Vimeo.
Just because you have a bottle of Sriracha sauce, so proudly on display on the fridge, doesn’t suddenly make you an expert on Asian cuisine.
What do you think? Enjoy our selections or think we need some chiding? Potential for either of these media makers to become something bigger? Agree with Trinh’s observations in “Home for Hermit”? Glad to see your beloved banh mi as the centerpiece for a sitcom thanks to Le?
Hi this is Vincent, the filmmaker of “Home for Hermit”. Thanks for the shout out you guys, it is definitely a honor! I just signed up for OneVietnam today, so hopefully I can network with lots of inspiring people from this site. 🙂
best,
Vincent
I love the video and the message. It resonates with me. Thanks OVN for posting the video.
Hey, Vincent, you made a beautiful, impacting documentary. You are not alone brother; there are probably many of us looking for a way home, too. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.