Vietnam’s First Israeli Film Festival Marks 20 Years of Diplomatic Relations
Former Israeli President Shimon Peres on a visit to Vietnam in 2011. Image by Getty Images
A film festival in Vietnam will mark 20 years of diplomatic relations with Israel.
The five-day festival organized by Israel’s embassy opens Saturday at the National Cinema Centre in Hanoi, moving on Nov. 6 to the BHD Star Cineplex ICON68 in Ho Chi Minh City, the embassy announced on its Facebook page earlier this week.
According to Israeli ambassador Meirav Eilon-Shahar, the festival will introduce to Vietnamese audiences the films “Foreign Letters,” “Broken Wings,” “The Matchmaker,” “Someone to Run With” and “Something Sweet”.
The movies will connect the two nations’ citizens and boost understanding of Israel, the news site vietnamnet.vn quoted Eilon-Shahar as saying.
Among other activities marking the 20 years is the Nov. 7 launching at Hanoi’s General Science Library of a Vietnamese-language translation of the 2012 book “The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History,” by Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein.
Another event is a Facebook-based quiz in which participants will be asked to answer five questions about a different photograph every week, for six weeks. The winner of the competition, which is set to begin Monday, will receive an iPhone 6 from the embassy. Other prizes include a large, framed map of Israel and a book about the Jewish state.
Trade between Israel and Vietnam in the first eight months of 2014 reached $624.9 million, a 60 percent increase over the corresponding period last year, according to data released earlier this month by the embassy.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
