MIFF presents
Hair, Paper, Water…
Tóc, Giấy và Nước…
When
Wed 19 Aug 2026
A critically endangered language is passed from grandmother to grandson in this sensory 16mm docufiction set among Vietnam’s Rục people.
At 60-plus years of age, Cao Thị Hậu dreams of returning to the traditional Rục cave dwelling where she was born. Instead, she travels from her modest village home to the hustle and bustle of Saigon, where she’ll spend time with her daughter and grandchildren. The Rục vocabulary lessons that Mrs. Hậu offers her Vietnamese-speaking young grandson, who is also learning English at school, become invitations to the filmmakers to play with text as a graphic element.
Trương Minh Quý (Viet and Nam, MIFF 2024) and Nicolas Graux’s richly textured, impressionistic documentary – which won the top prize in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present sidebar – is a thoughtfully layered extension of the relationship between director and subject that began with Trương’s science fiction-tinged 2019 docufiction The Tree House. Hair, Paper, Water…’s contemplative pacing is perfectly complemented by its lush, rain-misted palette, courtesy of Graux’s 16mm cinematography.
Content: Melbourne International Film Festival
A gentle and intimate portrait … that is radiant with an enveloping warmth. Every shot … is delicately imbued with an ephemeral fragrance.
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