'Quarantine Pic(k)': Water Outage

What does your film say about you?

The directors that have made names for themselves, they have their own identities. Nolan has time management problems; Scorsese is a mobster; Spielberg has unresolved daddy issues; Fincher is a psychopath; Craven knew a few too many psychopaths; Tarantino loves films a lot; Kubrick just tried everything and see what stuck; Hitchcock was, unsurprisingly, another psychopath; and Coppola did films for the LOLs rather than the awards.

The more I look up to them, the further I feel I am from them, from both an artistic and a technical standpoint. There's still so much more for me to learn, grow, and try, and even then, there's still a long way for me to goo.

I write scripts, many of them in fact, but I'm afraid to show them to anyone, because I hate incompletion, the feeling of having poured my time, heart and soul into something that might or might not get finished;

I can't do a storyboard, even though my brain always goes into overdrive with images and sounds, so much so that I feel as if it's catching fire;

I have not found out how to do a dolly zoom effectively;

I have not incorporated visual effects in any grandiose or captivating way;

I don't even know what camera's aperture(?), tilt shift lens (??), distortion of space (???) are.

"What?" is always the prevailing question in my head

I am utterly clueless when it comes to making a film. Which was why I made a film.

This is not going to be a review of the film I made: aside from obvious subjectivity, I have always maintained that I will only recommend films on this page.

So I am recommending a film that I made, and you will be its reviewer.

This is 'Mất Nước', or as it is known internationally, 'Water Outage'.

Synopsis: A low-rent apartment complex loses water. A lonely, aloof man will do everything to get it back.

Runtime: 18 minutes

Why This Film:

This was something that I had intended to make with Bui Thac Phong, a talented visionary/drummer, a year before this film even got off the ground. It started from a very pure place: We had both lost someone/something in that time, and we wanted to make a film about loss. It was as simple as an idea could ever be.

It was the first film I wrote an actual screenplay for, away from the first and second floor of TPD, and the first film I actively wanted to make in the breathtaking heat of August.

It was my first professionally produced film, made with the people I have built houses of memories with during past summers.

It was my last film before I started college.

And it might as well be the last film I made with the friends that had become such a binding part of our filmmaking journey in Hanoi, at least before I leave for college this August.

It was a lot of firsts, and just as many lasts. But it's the beginning of something, not the ending.

So what does this film say about me?

That I am carved out by the memories and hearts of the people I love, and of the talented, passionate group of friends, filmmakers and family around me. It is where I will start from, and it is what I will end with.

Cast & Crew of "Mất Nước"

I am proud of this, of what the people I respect and admire have made. I would not have been able to complete the film without the presence of much more talented and artistically dignified voices than mine. The overwhelming support, love, and patience the cast and crew exhibited towards me and this vision during the making of this film will be something I could never forget, even long after this film has become a benchmark of my youth.

Like it, love it, hate it, despise it, or if the film even rings out an emotion from you, thank you for having seen it.

The film will be doing a small awards run at U.S. festivals in New York, Sacramento and San Jose, as well being included as an Official Selection of international festivals in Venezia, Bogota and Kuala Lumpur, amongst many others. We did it guys: we made it to a festival. I don't want to jinx it for the cast and crew, but guys, I got a good feeling about this one.

Stay safe. Be happy. And keep making films.