Han Nefkens Foundation

The film opens with the fictional narrative of a Vietnamese-Khmer construction worker who specializes in brise-soleil, the concrete lattices for shading and ventilating buildings that, in cities like Ho Chi Minh City (before 1976 named Saigon), unite a traditional Vietnamese building technique with a modern material linked to US domination. The film’s second half, set during the 18th century’s feudal wars, centers on a folkloric love story between a Vietnamese medicinal healer and a Khmer woman that unfolds around the symbolic significance of a durian (or “thouren”) fruit, a major product of the Mekong Delta.

47 Days, Sound-less by Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi is a film that explores the relationships between sound and silence, vision, language, colours and their absence. Nguyễn identifies “peripheries”—including natural landscapes used as backdrops, uncredited characters and soundtracks from American and Vietnamese movies—that reveal more-than-human perspectives. Offering new ways of looking and listening, 47 Days, Sound-less invites audiences to reflect on the inextricable relationship between a place and its inhabitants.

In this emotionally charged contemplation on the glory and the tragedy of the Mekong River, different levels of real and imaginary worlds are brought together. Khmer folk tales, local lore and stories about reincarnation are told through vibrant watercolour animations and observations of daily life. Imbued with a sense of ecological responsibility toward the agricultural realities of the Mekong delta, they reveal a poetic but nonetheless biting consideration of Vietnam's troubled history.