Thien An Pham's first feature film , L'Arbre aux papillons d'or was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 's Quinzaine des Cinéastes and awarded the Caméra d'Or 2023. The director, already familiar with the Festival, had won the short film prize at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes in 2019 for Stay Awake, Be Ready. He also presented L'Arbre aux papillons d'or at the Cannes Film Festival 's Focus Copro film market, and received support from the Hubert Bals Fund at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2019.
L'Arbre aux papillons d'or (The Tree of Golden Butterflies) offers a veritable voyage of initiation through deep, rural Vietnam, with poetic overtones of existential quest. The film follows a man named Thiện, tasked with bringing back the body of his sister-in-law who died following a motorcycle accident in Saigon. Accompanied by his nephew Đạo, aged 5 and miraculously rescued from the accident, he sets out to find his brother who has been missing for several years.
This feature-length film reveals the striking beauty of Vietnam's wild and often little-known rural landscapes. Through an initiation to the discovery and search for faith, the director evokes difficult subjects such as mourning and the end of childhood, symptomatic of the loss of innocence. Evoked with great tact, this loss is central to the reflection - more specifically, the relationship maintained with grief at different stages of life is explored. Đạo's child character embodies the incomprehension and difficulty the mind encounters when conceiving this idea, to the point of becoming paradoxical when he seems more affected by the death of a bird than that of his own mother. The inconceivable is brought to light here, with all the questions that surround it: how can we keep faith after the loss of a loved one?
Using almost exclusively sequence shots, the director shows us moments in life that may seem rather empty, but which ultimately prove indispensable to the spiritual questioning the film invites us to ponder. The sensitivity of these moments is what makes Thien An Pham 's work so special, and underlines the very personal dimension of this feature-length film.
All these themes encompassing L'Arbre aux papillons d'or (The Tree of the Golden Butterflies) create a highly intimate, stunningly beautiful feature-length film.
October 2024 cinema releases: Films and times near you
Discover all the films in theaters in October 2024 with showtimes near you. Don't miss a single movie! [Read more]
Not sure which film to see today? Well, we've got plenty of films to show near you. [Read more]
October 2024 cinema releases: Films and times near you
Cinema: which film to see today, this Sunday December 22, 2024?
