A double screening of Carol’s documentaries, “No Crying at the Dinner Table,” and “Every Grain of Rice,” followed by an intimate discussion, moderated by Julie Mai.
Carol Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto and Montreal. Her films often explore the subjects of cultural identity and family and have screened around the globe, with her most recent film “No Crying at the Dinner Table” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and had its international premiere at IDFA 2019, where she was also invited as the Opening Night speaker. Carol is a 2018 Sundance Ignite fellow, Adobe Creativity Scholar and a TIFF Share Her Journey ambassador, where she strives to empower diverse voices and women through her own stories and personal experiences in the film industry. Today, Carol is working towards developing her first documentary feature as well as an animated short.
Workshop: Mental Health and You: From Trauma to Resiliency in the Vietnamese Community
Presenter: Jayson Pham
This workshop will be discussing the social determinants of mental health and mental illness in the Vietnamese Canadian/American context. A large number of Vietnamese Canadians/Americans are living with a mental illness and are silenced or shamed due to the negative perception of mental illness in the community. To better understand the Vietnamese community’s understanding of mental health, this workshop discusses wholly on the historical/cultural/societal lens in which had shaped the perspectives on how we view mental health/mental illness. Not only will this workshop examine the intergenerational trauma in the Vietnamese community, but also the systemic problems, such as racism, capitalism and inaccessible mental health care.
Jayson Pham (He/Him), is second-generation Vietnamese Canadian, a registered social worker (RSW), and a prominent mental health advocate in the Toronto/Ottawa area. He specializes in mental health, human rights, and international development.
Before starting his social work career, Jayson has spent months and years working abroad with local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Uganda and Indonesia, particularly on youth engagement/development, and trauma resiliency building. With his expertise in mental health and International Development, he is hoping to pursue a new career in disaster management.
Aside from his work, Jayson enjoys backpacking around the world, racing with his local cycling team, and drinking fair-trade coffee at his favourite coffee shop.
Workshop: Ăn Cơm Chưa? Exploring Vietnamese Identity through Food Culture
Presenter: Alex Nguyen
Workshop description coming soon.
Alex Nguyen is an American-born Vietnamese child of the internet living in Brooklyn. He graduated from Columbia University and has lived in New York for so long that he burned out and moved to Saigon for a year where he worked at a road safety NGO and traveled extensively across Southeast Asia. Now stateside, when he’s not writing, hustling, or working on creative content strategy (currently at Nguyen Coffee Supply), he’s probably eating or thinking about food. His other main passions include contemporary art, film, fashion, and all things pop culture. You can follow him on Instagram @duriancologne.
Workshop: Sharing Confusion Cuisine: Consuming Vietnamese-North American Experiences
Presenter: Lenora Huynh
The second-generation Vietnamese-Canadian community has a unique and complex relationship with food and culture. The cuisine’s deep rooted background stems from situations of colonization, westernization, and globalization. Hence, it is important for the community to investigate and navigate a conversation surrounding food and how it is used as a reference for cultural identity. On the surface, Vietnamese cuisine may be a minimal part of the diaspora’s connection to the homeland. As cultural displacement becomes more prevalent within the community, there is a need to share and consume what feels like home. Throughout this workshop, Lenora will aim to address the intimacy of otherness through stories of assimilation and adaptation.
Lenora Huynh is a Vietnamese-Canadian emerging artist, based in Waterloo, Ontario. Inspired by Vietnamese language, she creates visual poetry that reflects on personal experiences of cultural displacement. The project, rice plants don’t belong in a land of prairies, is a debut poem that utilizes food and film as means to assert her identity. Lenora’s primary artistic intentions are to create metaphors for the multilingual nature of second-generation Vietnamese-Canadians; to portray the feeling of in-betweenness that arises from code-switching. By fusing text with visual media, she aims to comment on how language can be invoked to illustrate identity. Further, by introducing food into her work, she explores how identity is shaped and questioned when cultures collide. Throughout Lenora’s artistic practice, she persistently ponders the validity of her identity while yearning to belong in a place called home.