Golding plunges into modern Vietnam in ‘Monsoon’

LOS ANGELES, July 1, (RTRS): “Article 15” has scooped the audience award at the London Indian Film Festival. Anubhav Sinha’s movie stars Ayushmann Khurrana and also opened the tenth edition of LIFF, which is Europe’s largest South Asian film festival.

 Khurrana stars as a police officer from a privileged background in “Article 15”, which Zee Studios International is distributing. He is posted to rural north India and tasked with investigating the disappearance of three girls. The movie takes its name from the part of the Indian constitution prohibiting discrimination and draws inspiration from several real-life assault and murder cases that highlighted social injustice.

 “I am so happy that the film actually connected with Indians abroad and with non-Indians alike, who are not facing this version of inequality on a daily basis,” Sinha said.

 LIFF ran across five cities in the UK and, in addition to the screenings, the latest edition saw stars talking about the movies and their lives and the industry. Diversity and equality were in the spotlight. “Blinded by the Light” filmmaker Gurinder Chadha was given an Icon award and said that “working as a British Asian woman in the entertainment industry has many struggles, so it feels good to be recognized.”

 Mental health was another focus at the festival, which is supported by the Bagri Foundation and the British Film Institute. Anurag Kashyap, who won an Icon award, was interviewed by “Girl With a Pearl Earring” director Peter Webber and talked about dealing with depression. Radhika Apte took home an outstanding achievement accolade, and spoke about her battle with anxiety.

“On our tenth Birthday year I’m delighted that we have not only expanded to five cities with 100 screenings, but also showcased our strongest film selection ever, helmed by the world premiere of politically daring film ‘Article 15’,” said LIFF director Cary Rajinder Sawhney.

 He added: “Continuing to push the boundaries of diversity, I’m very pleased that our women protagonist led and LGBTQ+ themed films have seen audiences flocking to them, redefining images of Indian and South Asian culture in the media.”

 Other LIFF winners included Buddhadeb Dasgupta who scooped an Icon award, Richie Mehta who landed an outstanding achievement accolade, and Harshvardhan Kapoor who won the rising star honor.

Director Hong Khaou follows his debut feature, the Sundance critical hit “Lilting”, with “Monsoon”, which premiered Saturday in competition at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The film stars “Crazy Rich Asians” lead Henry Golding and Parker Sawyers. Variety spoke to Khaou about the film.

“Monsoon” follows a Vietnamese-born British guy Kit, played by Golding, as he travels with the ashes of his parents to Vietnam, which they left when he was a child in the turbulent aftermath of the Vietnam War. In Ho Chi Minh City, a bustling commercial metropolis, he meets American entrepreneur Lewis, played by Sawyers, and the two of them tentatively develop a relationship.

Kit spends time exploring the city, with the assistance of his cousin, Lee, whose parents decided to stay in Vietnam, and then travels to Hanoi, where he hangs out with Linh (Molly Harris), a Vietnamese student who embodies the ambitious spirit of the young generation, despite feeling constrained by her family’s traditional values.

The film began to take shape when “Lilting” played in Sundance, and the prestigious Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab suggested Khaou pitch them an idea for his next project. In the four years that followed, with the support of the BFI and BBC Films, the pic underwent “various incarnations,” Khaou says.

For example, the project started out as a two hander between Kit and the character who ended up as Lewis, an African American, in the finished film, but started out as Hank, a Caucasian American. “Along the way, through the various notes that came from the execs and financiers, it was felt that the Hank character’s voice – the dominant white American, in terms of the subtext of the war – had been heard before,” Khaou says.

There are slight similarities between Khaou’s experience and Kit’s – like Kit’s family, Khaou’s parents fled South-East Asia when he was young – in their case from Cambodia – and he too grew up in Britain, but he wanted to distance himself a little from the film. “I didn’t want to make it so much about me, although I guess it is inevitable it always comes out,” he says. “I wanted to hide behind this Vietnamese character, so to speak, and talk about these feeling and issues I’ve always had about having to flee a war-torn country... and the struggle for a sense of cultural identity,” Khaou says.