Film Archive

Monsoon

Official Selection - Competition 2019 / Monsoon / United Kingdom 2019

Kit can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in the local surroundings as any Western tourist would: everything seems remote and alien. A subtle film which records one man’s journey back to his roots as it evocatively mediates the (re)discovery of his identity.

Synopsis

Kit can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in his local surroundings as any Western tourist would: the environment is as exotic as the language is incomprehensible. The aim of Kit’s travels – to find a place to scatter his parents’ ashes – thus becomes part of a journey back to his roots and to the discovery of his identity, which external circumstances have rendered ambiguous and complex. Hong Khaou’s ability to evocatively express the inner transformation of heroes trying to see the way ahead underpins both his debut Lilting and Monsoon, a subtle film about rootlessness, the process of recollection, and finding new contexts that bring a different sense to one’s existence.

Sandra Hezinová

About the film

85 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Hong Khaou / Screenplay Hong Khaou / Dir. of Photography Benjamin Kracun / Editor Mark Towns / Art Director Francesca Massariol / Producer Tracy O'Riordan / Production Monsoon Films / Coproduction BBC, BFI, Sharphouse / Cast Henry Golding, Parker Sawyers / Sales Protagonist Pictures / Contact Sanam Jehanfard

About the director

Hong Khaou (b. 1975, Phnom Penh, Cambodia). Filmography: Summer (2006, short), Spring (2011, short), Lilting (2014, screened at the 49th KVIFF), Monsoon (2019)