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”.

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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.

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