Mother Fish

Last updated

Mother Fish
Mother Fish.jpg
Directed by Khoa Do
Written byKhoa Do
Produced byKhoa Do
Starring
  • Kathy Nguyen
  • Sheena Pham
  • Hieu Phan
  • Vico Thai
CinematographyPeter Holland
Music byAlan John
Production
company
Imaginefly
Distributed by Titan View
Release date
  • 9 June 2009 (2009-06-09)(Sydney)
[1]
Running time
92 minutes
CountryAustralia
Languages

Mother Fish, also known as Missing Water, is a feature film written, produced and directed by Khoa Do. The film draws largely from Khoa Do's own experiences as a Vietnamese refugee, [2] [3] and reflects on the perceived fear in the general population generated by 'boat people' which is prevalent in Australian politics and discourse. [4]

Contents

Plot

Mother Fish follows the story of a middle-aged Vietnamese woman (Hyen Nguyen) working in a suburban sweatshop. In the evening when the workers have left, she is transported back to the night she and her sister (Sheena Pham) fled her homeland, led by an uncle promising to reunite them with their father.

Through the setting of the sweatshop, the woman remembers the journey. The boat is unprepared for the ocean crossing, as are they. Food and water supplies are low, their engine breaks, and the threat of rape and death at the hands of South-sea pirates is real. Through the woman's memory the audience relives the experience of crossing the ocean in search of a better life. [5]

Development

Mother Fish was an original play written by Khoa Do and produced by Powerhouse Youth Theatre. [6] The play drew from Khoa Do's own experience arriving by boat to Australia in the 1980s, when he was two years old. [7]

Do has stated that the development of the film was highly personal, and its intention was for the audience to empathise with the plight of boat people. [8] The film communicates this message by ending with the statistic that over 1,500,000 people fled Vietnam between 1975 and 1996. Only 900,000 of those made land, meaning that 600,000 were lost at sea. Of the survivors, approximately 137,000 came to Australia. [9]

Production

A defining feature of Mother Fish is that it was shot in a similar style to Lars von Trier's Dogville , by setting all the action entirely within the sweatshop. [7] [10]

Do chose to work with first-time actors who had all either been refugees or descendants of refugees. [11] Hieu Phan, who plays the woman's Uncle, was a refugee who made the crossing 30 years ago, and has spoken of weeping in rehearsals as the memory of his own boat journey came back to him. [12] While shooting, the cast were kept on a strict monitored diet to lose weight in a similar manner to refugees who had made the crossing. [13]

Reception

Mother Fish held its world premiere at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival [1] where it was also in Official Competition. [14] At the festival it won the 2009 Community Relations Commission Award, which acknowledges on screen work promoting linguistic and cultural diversity. [11]

On 19 April 2010, Mother Fish had its theatrical premiere at Riverside Theatres Parramatta, [15] coinciding with the 35th anniversary of Vietnamese settlement in Australia. The Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services paid tribute to the premiere. [16]

Mother Fish received largely positive reviews. [7] It scored four stars from Margaret Pomeranz and three and a half stars from David Stratton on the program At the Movies. [10]

Reviewers generally debated Khao Do's daring approach of creating the boat trip out of the space of the sweatshop, however performances were generally critically praised for their 'honesty', usually driven by the actors own backgrounds. [17]

Mother Fish also won the DigiSPAA Award for best film shot digitally in 2010 [18] and the Spotlight Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in Los Angeles. [19]

Related Research Articles

Dustin Nguyen Vietnamese-American actor

Dustin Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his roles as Harry Truman Ioki on 21 Jump Street and as Johnny Loh on VIP. In film, he is known for starring in Little Fish, The Doom Generation and The Rebel.

Overseas Vietnamese Diaspora community of Việt people

Overseas Vietnamese refers to Vietnamese people who live outside Vietnam. There are approximately 4.5 million overseas Vietnamese, the largest community of whom live in the United States. The oldest wave of overseas Vietnamese left Vietnam as economic and political refugees after the 1975 fall of Saigon and the North Vietnamese annexation of South Vietnam.

First started in 2003, the Vietnamese International Film Festival is a biennial film festival organized by the non-profits Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) and UCLAs VietNamese Language and Culture (VNLC). ViFF takes place at the University of California, Irvine, the University of California, Los Angeles, and other locations in and near the Little Saigon area of Orange County, California.

Vietnamese Australians are Australians of Vietnamese ancestry. Vietnamese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Vietnamese diaspora. At the 2021 census, 334,781 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry, representing 1.3% of the Australian population. In 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 268,170 Australian residents who were born in Vietnam.

Khoa Do

Khoa Do, is a film director, screenwriter, and philanthropist. He received the Young Australian of the Year Award in 2005.

<i>Footy Legends</i> 2006 Australian film

Footy Legends is a 2006 Australian film, directed and co-written by Khoa Do, produced by Megan McMurchy, starring Khoa's older brother and co-writer Anh Do, Angus Sampson, Emma Lung and Claudia Karvan. It was filmed in and around the Sydneywestern suburbs of Yagoona, Bankstown, Fairfield and Rookwood Necropolis. Footy Legends was released in Australia on 3 August 2006.

Bidong Island

The Bidong Island is one square kilometre in area and is situated off the coast of Terengganu, Malaysia in the South China Sea. Bidong Island is accessible from the coastal town of Merang in Setiu district. From 1978 until 2005 Bidong Island was a refugee camp with a population reaching at its peak as many as 40,000 Vietnamese refugees. A total of about 250,000 refugees were residents of the camp during the period of its operation. Most stayed on Bidong a few months or longer and were resettled abroad in third countries, especially the United States.

Anh Do Vietnamese-born Australian author, actor and comedian

Anh Do is a Vietnamese-born Australian author, actor, comedian, and painter. He has appeared on Australian TV shows such as Thank God You're Here and Good News Week, and was runner-up on Dancing with the Stars in 2007. He studied a combined Business Law degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is the brother of film director Khoa Do and has acted in several of Khoa's films, including Footy Legends, which he co-wrote and produced. In 2012, his TV show Anh Does Vietnam began airing. He has been four times a finalist in the Archibald Prize and won the 2017 People's Choice Award. Since 2016, Do has hosted Anh's Brush with Fame on ABC TV in which he concurrently interviews and paints a portrait of prominent Australians.

Maura Fay was a leading casting director within the entertainment industry in Australia. In 2001 she was named as one of the 25 most influential people in television and radio in Australia. In 2001 the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) Services to Industry Award was awarded posthumously to Maura. SPAA has since decided to name the award the Maura Fay Award for Services to the Industry in recognition of Maura's extraordinarily rich life and valued contributions to Australian film and television.

<i>Black Water</i> (2007 film) 2007 Australian film

Black Water is a 2007 Australian horror film written and directed by Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich. The film, an international co-production of Australia and the United Kingdom, is set in the mangrove swamps of northern Australia, and stars Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody and Andy Rodoreda. Inspired by the true story of a crocodile attack in Australia's Northern Territory in December 2003, a pregnant woman, along with her boyfriend and her sister, take a boat tour of a mangrove swamp, where they are terrorized by a ferocious saltwater crocodile.

Vico Thai is an Australian actor, He is known for his role as Justin Yang on ABC TV’s award winning drama series Total Control and as Riz in Foxtel's Dangerous TV series. His other notable roles include starring as Chau in the international feature film Mother Fish and as Quang in Matchbox Pictures and NBC Universals original mini series for SBS called Hungry Ghosts.

Nguyen Tuong-van, baptised Caleb, was an Australian from Melbourne, Victoria convicted of drug trafficking in Singapore. A Vietnamese Australian, he was also addressed as Nguyen Tuong-van (阮祥雲) in the Singaporean media, his name in Vietnamese custom, as well as in most Asian customs.

Hiep Thi Le Vietnamese-American actress and restaurateur

Hiep Thi Le was a Vietnamese-American actress and restaurateur. She is best known for her portrayal of Le Ly in the film Heaven & Earth (1993).

<i>Adrift</i> (2009 Vietnamese film) 2009 Vietnamese film

Adrift is a 2009 Vietnamese film directed by Bui Thac Chuyen and stars Linh Dan Pham, Do Thi Hai Yen, Johnny Tri Nguyen and Nguyen Duy Khoa. Hai Yen plays Duyen, a young tourist guide who marries Hai, a taxi driver, but her friend and writer Cam still has feelings for her. The film deals with issues in modern Vietnam such as homosexuality and loneliness of the young generation. The film is a co-production between Feature Film Studio n°1 (Vietnam) and Acrobates Films (France).

<i>Family Demons</i> 2009 Australian film

Family Demons is a 2009 Australian horror film written and directed by Ursula Dabrowsky and starring Cassandra Kane, Kerry Reid, and Alex Rafalowicz.

Vietnamese boat people Refugees who fled Vietnam by boat following the end of the Vietnam War (1975)

Vietnamese boat people, also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in 1978 and 1979, but continued through the early 1990s. The term is also often used generically to refer to the Vietnamese people who left their country in mass exodus between 1975 and 1995. This article uses the term "boat people" to apply only to those who fled Vietnam by sea.

Thanh Hà (singer) Singer (born 1969)

Trương Minh Hà, known under the stage name of Thanh Hà, is a Vietnamese American singer.

Indochina refugee crisis Outflow of 3 million refugees from communism in the late 20th century

The Indochina refugee crisis was the large outflow of people from the former French colonies of Indochina, comprising the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, after communist governments were established in 1975. Over the next 25 years and out of a total Indochinese population in 1975 of 56 million, more than 3 million people would undertake the dangerous journey to become refugees in other countries of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, or China. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 250,000 Vietnamese refugees had perished at sea by July 1986. More than 2.5 million Indochinese were resettled, mostly in North America, Australia, and Europe. More than 525,000 were repatriated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, mainly from Cambodia.

Maria Tran is an Australian actress, martial artist, producer, and director based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is known for developing the martial arts action film genre in Australia via the Asian diaspora communities of Western Sydney through her shorts such as Hit Girls, Gaffa, Enter The Dojo; her contributions on Australian television; Maximum Choppage and movies outside of Australia; Roger Corman's Fist of the Dragon, Death Mist and Vietnamese action blockbuster Tracer. Tran is pivotal to the creative development of the Australian Vietnamese film movement that challenges gender stereotypes and the exploration of "female action".

References

  1. 1 2 Heartfelt performances float kitchen-sink drama - Sydney Film Festival 2009
  2. ↑ Interview with Khoa Do, director of MOTHER FISH : ViFF: Vietnamese International Film Festival - Official Site Archived 16 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ At the Movies: Mother Fish Interview
  4. ↑ Asylum Seekers Scapegoated For Political Gain
  5. ↑ Mother Fish (2010) - IMDb
  6. ↑ Mother Fish at PYT Archived 20 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  7. 1 2 3 Mother Fish (a.k.a. Missing Water) | Reviews, Trailers, News, Interviews, Discussion | SBS Film
  8. ↑ Missing water tells the story of the boat people - ABC Sydney - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  9. ↑ RealTime Arts - Magazine - issue 98 - boat people: intimate tragedy
  10. 1 2 At the Movies: Mother Fish
  11. 1 2 Powered by Google Docs
  12. ↑ ROTTEN TOMATOES: Sydney Film Festival: Official Competition Continues
  13. ↑ Sheena Pham star of Missing Water at Sydney Film Festival | thetelegraph.com.au
  14. ↑ Director chases to the cut with six days to $60,000 deadline - smh.com.au
  15. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 1 April 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. ↑ Mother Fish giving voice to Australian stories Archived 1 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ Urban Cinefile MOTHER FISH
  18. ↑ SBS Films - Missing Water hits the mark
  19. ↑ April 18, 2011DigiSPAA 2009 winner Khoa Do’s Mother Fish wins VIFF Spotlight Award « DigiSPAA | Digital feature film competition Archived 21 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.