Vietnamese film Glorious Ashes (Tro Tàn Rực Rỡ) is among the 15 international competition titles and is the first from Vietnam to make its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) in October.
Based on two short stories — The Rotting Firewood Drifting Back and Glorious Ashes — by renowned Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Ngọc Tư, director Bùi Thạc Chuyên’s motion picture depicts the relationships between three women and their partners in the southern seaside village of Ca Mau.
The film starring Le Cong Hoang, Bao Ngoc Doling, and Phuong Anh Dao stood out among the 1,695 submissions from 107 countries and regions TIFF received this year.
The Competition will showcase feature films that were completed after January 2022. Following a rigorous screening process, 15 films were chosen from around the world for screening at the festival. The International Competition Jury, comprised of international cineastes, will award the prizes to the winners at the Closing Ceremony.
In 2017, the film won a major award at the Busan International Film Festival. The Glorious Ashes is Chuyen’s latest project since the 2009 Adrift (Chơi vơi) — a story of a newly married couple in Hanoi and the consequences of their deepest sexual desires.
TIFF is one of the biggest film festivals in Asia, the 35th edition this year. TIFF seeks out excellent cinematic materials from around the world and brings them to Tokyo, where filmmakers and film fans can enjoy them, meet emerging filmmakers, and be inspired. As Japan slowly reopens to global visitors, TIFF will open with a red carpet event for the first time in three years.
Ando Hiroyasu, chairman of TIFF, said, “For the past three years, we’ve been struggling due to COVID-19, although we did manage to have partially physical events. We will continue to take all necessary precautions as we return to a fully physical event this year.”
TIFF will feature offline screenings and a raft of related events in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area of Tokyo from October 24 to November 2. Additionally, the festival has added three more screens in the festival area, enabling it to increase the number of films by 30%, to 110 films.