Vietnamese film wins award at Cannes Film Festival 2019

A Vietnamese short film named “Stay Awake, Be Ready” by young director Pham Thien An has won a Illy award at the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival 2019.

The young director Pham Thien An (L)
The young director Pham Thien An (L)

The movie surpassed nine other films from around the world to win the award at the Cannes Film Festival 2019 held from May 14-25 this year. The Directors’ Fortnight section aims to honour feature, short films and documentaries that do not compete in the main categories.

Completed in 2018, the film “Stay Awake, Be Ready” is about a traffic accident in front of a sidewalk food stall that spontaneously connects the life of three young people.

Cannes is one of the three biggest film festivals in the world. For the Director’s Fortnight section, the leading judge was Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra, whose film “Embrace of the Serpent” received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016.

The film will officially premiered at Cannes from the 23 and 24 of May and received a lot of positive feedback from the film community and international audience.