Eat Your Cake: a Vietnamese tale
Originally conceived and painstakingly crafted, Sally Tran's short film is one of several New Zealand debuts at the 2010 NZ International Film Festival and was made with support from Asia:NZ's arts programme.
“Don’t ever forget who you are or how lucky you are to be here in this country.” Sally Tran’s short film Eat Your Cake; I’m a Vietnamese Refugee ends on this poignant note as it tells the true story of a Vietnamese New Zealander who fled imprisonment in his home country as a young boy. The film will be shown across New Zealand, starting in Auckland on 22 July, as part of the 2010 NZ International Film Festival.
The film’s subject, Mitchell Pham, now a well known businessman in New Zealand, escaped Vietnam at a third attempt and survived a testing time living as a refugee, before being resettled in New Zealand. Sally Tran’s inspiration was to recreate Mitchell’s story using the traditional craft of Vietnamese paper-folding.
“My mother once brought me this beautiful lamp from Vietnam: it was made using this exquisite paper-folding technique that I thought was just so amazing,” Sally recalled. “After a bit of research into it, I found out it was a technique that Vietnamese crafts people use. This inspired me to create a project based on a fascinating and unique animation style.”
The film uses an incredible 10,000 pieces of paper all folded by Sally and her group of 20 volunteers during six-hour folding sessions every Sunday over six months.
“Just one of the soldiers would require 250 pieces, and [in the film] we had six army men – it didn't happen overnight. It was a really time-consuming process,” Sally explained. The creation of the props was led by origami art director Wendy Wang.
But the work didn’t stop at paper-folding. Once the props were ready, the sets had to be constructed and captured in stop-motion animation in front of a blue or green screen. It took Sally a whole month to capture the elements on her own, before sending the storyboard and shot list to the animation team to do the animation sequence.
For the story, Sally interviewed Mitchell Pham during three three-hourly sessions. There were a lot of difficult memories to include and Sally wanted to get an accurate feel for Mitchell’s experience as a refugee fleeing post-war Vietnam and coming to New Zealand, before she could edit the script down to only 12 minutes.
The animation sequences do most of the story-telling; native Vietnamese actors voice many of the characters, something which adds a layer of realism to the flashbacks. There is a moving family farewell to the young boy who realises he’s about to finally abandon his home.
Sally’s main intended audience for her short film is young people and secondary school students. She wants them to get drawn into the story and come out having learned a little about refugees and the struggle that they go through. “We wanted to make sure [the story] was easy to digest and unique compared to what is screened at school or on television.” Sally is currently researching ways to screen her short film to school audiences in New Zealand and to film festival audiences overseas.
The project was made on a tight budget, with support from Creative New Zealand and Asia:NZ’s arts programme. Sally says it was a great learning experience, fusing documentary storytelling with stop-motion animation to tell a unique and inspirational story.
- by Antonia Kokalova-Gray
Short film synopsis
Eat your cake; I'm a Vietnamese Refugee is an experimental documentary about courage and survival. It's about having the will and perseverance to succeed despite considerable obstacles. The story of Mitchell Pham's remarkable life will be told through the evocative use of stop-frame animation created through a traditional Vietnamese craft, mixed with traditional documentary story telling and fictional film to create an innovative account of his harrowing but ultimately inspirational journey from Vietnamese prison camp to a life in New Zealand.
The title of this film is based on the English idiomatic proverb 'to have one's cake and eat it, too'. The idiom is based on the idea that to have one's cake and eat it, too is to want more than one can handle or deserve. Mitchell Pham's story is about the desire of one man 'to have his cake' - in this case, make the hazardous escape from prison camp to a new life in another country - and 'eat it, too' – have a successful life in New Zealand that belies his early struggles.