Film Director Luu Trong Ninh and Vietnam Film Censorship
- Artist/Author/Producer: Luu Trong Ninh
- Confronting Bodies: Vietnamese Government
- Dates of action: 1993
- Location: 1993
- Description of the Art Work
- The film "Please Forgive Me" depicts the struggle of a
soldier-turned-movie-producer trying to make a film glorifying Hanoi's
war with the US by using Vietnamese actors and actresses born after the
Communist victory in 1975. It explores the conflict between the older
generation of Vietnamese, which romanticizes its role in "liberating" the
country from foreign aggressors, and younger people, who are more fun-
loving, consumer-oriented, and cosmopolitan.
The older characters in the movie repeatedly criticize the country's
youth for not appreciating the contribution of their parents generation,
what they have bequeathed the country... "
- Description of incident
- "Please Forgive Me" was screened untouched by censors, but it was later
banned.
"Ninh (the filmmaker) says he has been told he must cut four scenes
before the movie can be shown again. Hano's keepers of artistic orthodoxy
took umbrage because one of the characters declared that Vietnamese
communist troops as well as US soldiers had commited acts of brutality
during the war. Ninh also was asked to remove a scene in which a group of
college students spoof the party's Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth
Association, declaring that it know longer exists in real life."
- Results of incident
- Luu Trong Ninh is US$40,000 in debt due to a private loan taken out to
produce the film, and therefore has stated that he will probably have to
cut the scenes to lift the ban and repay his debts.
Source: Murray Hiebert, Far Eastern Economic Review, July 22, 1993, pg. 90