'Don't Cry Butterfly' takes Grand Prize at Venice Critics’ Week

Award-winning director Dương Diệu Linh (third from right) and the crew in Venice. Photo courtesy of film crew

HÀ NỘI Vietnamese filmmaker Dương Diệu Linh's Don't Cry Butterfly won the Grand Prize at Settimana Internazionale della Critica (Venice Critics’ Week).

The winner was announced on September 6 in the 39th edition of Venice International Film Festival sidebar organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics,

The international jury, made up of Kerem Ayan, Yasmine Benkiran and Ariane Labed, awarded the Grand Prize to Linh. The movie was also took the Most Innovative Film award.

The jury praised the feature’s uniqueness and creativity, which “mixes comedy, social drama and fantasy while depicting the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship”.

The film, one of seven selected from 700 worldwide to take part in the Venice Critics’ Week will be awarded 10,000 euros (over US$11,000) in cash.

Don't Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year old housewife, who learns through live television that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then attempts to voodoo her husband back into love.

In Don’t Cry Butterfly, actress Tú Oanh plays the leading role along with Lê Vũ Long, Nguyễn Nam Linh and Bùi Thạc Phong, who is Tú Oanh's son.

Linh said that she took inspiration from the women in her family - mother, aunties and cousins. She wanted to shed light on the complex aspects of the relationship between women and society and the suffering they often face to.

"Just a few days before the world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, an actor asked me how do I feel living in my cinematic dream after hard working. I answered him that I have lived in a dream during five past years when I worked with an amazing team," Linh said.

Born in 1990, the Singapore-based filmmaker is among emerging directors of Việt Nam cinema. She studied at the School of Art, Media and Design, Nanyang Technological University.

Don't Cry Butterfly is her first feature film. She has directed five short films before, Adults Don’t Say Sorry; Mother, Daughter, Dreams; and Sweet, Salty, form a series about sad and angsty middle-aged Vietnamese women.

Mother, Daughter, Dreams was screened in the short film competition at the Busan International Film Festival in 2018.

In 2019 her project won the competition at the Script to Screen workshop, organised by the US Motion Picture Association, the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, CJ Entertainment and Autumn Meeting, in HCM City and also brought her to Hollywood for a four-day film immersion course.

Then the project received the new Moulin d’Andé–CECI award at the Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland.

Linh and her film will attend the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival this month and the 29th Busan International Film Festival in October as part of the A Window into Asian Cinema programme.

Don't Cry Butterfly is a co-production between Việt Nam, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. It has been acquired by CJ CGV Việt Nam for domestic release, though a specific date has not yet been announced.

In 2014, the Vietnamese film Đập Cánh Giữa Không Trung (Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere), directed by Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp, was selected to compete for the award. VNS