Film Review: Farewell, Halong [Tạm Biệt Hạ Long]

Annika Yates is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Minnesota. Her current research centers on political ecology, political anthropology, and anthropology of sport in contemporary Vietnam.

Đức Ngô Ngọc (Duc Ngo Ngoc) is a Vietnamese-German filmmaker. He was born in Hà Nội in 1988 and moved to Berlin at the age of five. From 2010 until 2014, he studied media design and art at Bauhaus University in Weimar. Đức Ngô Ngọc is cofounder of the KAMMER11 Filmkollektiv, established in 2013. He received his master’s degree in directing at Babelsberg Film University. His films have received a number of awards; his short feature film Apples and Oranges [Obst und Gemüse] won Best Comedy and Audience Award at Munich’s Landshuter Short Film Festival in 2017 and the Audience Award at the Leipzig Short Film Festival “Kurzsüchtig” in 2017. Farewell, Halong won the Best Film at the Viet Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2018, as well as the DIALOG prize at Filmfestival Cottbus. His latest film, Training Happiness, shot in Vietnam, won the Audience Award at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival.

Đức Ngô Ngọc’s Farewell, Halong is available to view on Vimeo On Demand, Realeyz, and GuideDoc.