Nguyễn Kim Hồng

In this Vietnamese name, the surname is Nguyễn, but is often simplified to Nguyen in English-language text. In accordance with Vietnamese custom, this person should be referred to by the given name, Kim Hồng.

Nguyễn Kim Hồng (chữ Hán and Chinese: 阮金紅; pinyin: Ruǎn Jīnhóng; born May 15, 1980), a Vietnamese-Taiwanese documentary filmmaker, was raised in rural province in Vietnam, alongside nine siblings. Dropping out of primary school to support family of agricultural workers, she later moved to Taiwan at the age of 21 after marrying a Taiwanese. Facing domestic abuse, Nguyễn divorced and sustained herself through various jobs. In 2008, she crossed paths with Tsai Tsung-lung (Chinese: 蔡崇隆; pinyin: Cài Chónglóng), a documentary maker, from whom she learned photography. They not only became life partners but also collaborated in their careers. Nguyễn's documentaries, highlighting the injustices faced by immigrants, have earned recognition in the Taiwanese film industry.

Early life

Nguyễn Kim Hồng is a Vietnamese-origin Taiwanese documentary film director.

She grew up in rural Đồng Tháp province in Vietnam with nine siblings and had to drop out of school after fifth grade to help her family of agricultural workers. Nguyễn, burdened by her family's patriarchal beliefs, contemplated leaving her home due to a lack of recognition. Inspired by the success of women from her village who had become brides in Taiwan, she yearned for a new life away from her family's oppressive environment Kim Hồng decided to marry a Taiwanese man and moved to Taiwan in 2000 at 21. Her ex-husband abused her, accrued debts from gambling and her in-laws never accepted her, so she divorced him in 2008. After the divorce, she worked various jobs including electroplating, stamping press, screw molding, and gas stations. As a single mother with custody of their daughter, she faced poverty and even thought of suicide. She took self-help courses to recover and volunteered at a local immigrant organization. That year, she met Tsai Tsung-lung, a fellow documentary filmmaker and divorcee, at a film seminar. She appreciated the help he gave as an acquaintance, and they ended up courting and marrying the next year. They frequently collaborate on each other's films.

Early documentary

Out/Marriage

Out/Marriage, her first film, focused on other Vietnamese women in Taiwan whose marriages to Taiwanese citizens had failed and was released in 2012.

This film marks Taiwan's first documentary from the perspective of new immigrants discussing cross-cultural marriages. The documentary starts by delving into the personal experiences of new immigrant women, chronicling the shattered marriages of four foreign sisters living in Taiwan. They arrived in Taiwan with dreams of finding happiness, but in the end, they all ended up on the path of divorce, whether by choice or not.

The situations of sisters vary greatly. Some encounter husbands with alcohol problems, leading to neglect, domestic violence, and even threats with a knife. Others marry reluctantly to fulfill their parents' wish for descendants, devoid of any emotional connection. Meanwhile, a woman from Indonesia faces challenges due to cultural differences between her and her in-laws, putting her husband in a difficult position. In the end, he chooses family ties over love. After the divorce,the documentary recorded how they would choose the next chapter in their lives. Furthermore, the documentary recorded what kind of life and educational challenges would their Taiwanese children face after their parents' international marriages fell apart.

For the film, Kim Hồng successfully applied for a Wanderer grant from the Cloud Gate Dance Theater, the first such grant given to a "new immigrant". It was nominated for Best Documentary at the Taipei Film Festival.

The Lovable Strangers

Her second film, a short video titled Lonely Strangers (2013), covered the lives and struggles of migrant Vietnamese workers in Taiwan who had illegally migrated and changed their jobs.The number of foreign laborers in Taiwan is estimated at around 728,081, but their way of life has always been quite different from that of Taiwanese people. Among them, there is a group known as "undocumented foreign workers", who remain largely invisible, especially with the prevalence of negative media coverage, forcing them to work in the shadows. Undocumented foreign workers, with a significant portion coming from Vietnam, came to know their fellow laborers who had ended up working abroad by chance. Through this, they gradually understood why this familiar yet unfamiliar group of people had to start this unfortunate, fearful, and challenging journey to earn a living.

According to Tsai, both Kim Hồng and the migrant workers were apprehensive about each other, but slowly built up trust during filming due to their shared background and promises of anonymity for the workers. She was awarded the Golden Harvest Award in 2014 for The Lovable Strangers.

The recent documentaries

See You, Lovely Strangers

See You, Lovely Strangers is a documentary as a sequel to the 2013 production "Lonely Strangers " The title carries a double meaning: one follows the protagonist Ah Fu in Vietnam, and the other introduces the public to a group of fugitive migrant workers scattered across Taiwan. The film explores the lives of four Vietnamese migrant workers who ventured to Taiwan with dreams of returning home with newfound prosperity. However, their aspirations were shattered, and they found themselves labeled as "people who cannot be seen," despite not being criminals.These individuals were relegated to the fringes of Taiwanese society, where they hid in obscurity, silently working to eke out a living.

In 2016, the total number of migrant workers in Taiwan had reached 600,000. The purpose of this film was to uncover the helplessness of illegal foreign migrant workers. See You, Lovely Strangers won Best Documentary at the 2016 Golden Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films and the 2017 Labor Academy Award. Nguyễn Kim Hồng took a year-long break from filmmaking. Additionally, the documentary has not been publicly screened outside schools and film festivals to preserve the workers' privacy and trust

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Nguyễn Kim Hồng also participated in the documentary "And Miles to Go Before I Sleep ", directed by Tsai Tsung-lung. It is adapted from a criminal case and tragic incident that occurred in Taiwan in 2017.An undocumented Vietnamese migrant worker Nguyễn Quốc Phi was fired nine shots to death by a young and newly recruited policeman when Nguyễn was naked, walking along a river in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and having a physical confrontation with pedestrians and the police.This film reconstructs Ruan Guofei's life trajectory and combines the original video of the incident with the on-site inspection of migrant workers to guide the audience to think that there is actually a larger structural problem behind Ruan's death case.

At the 59th Golden Horse Awards in 2022, the film won the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary. In 2023, it was exhibited in the Right to Know section of the Czech ONE WORLD International Human Rights Film Festival. This marked the first time a documentary on migrant workers received the Golden Horse Award, creating a platform for voiceless migrants and drawing attention to related issues in mainstream society.

External links

• Nguyễn Kim Hồng on Facebook
• Nguyễn Kim Hồng at IMDb
• Nguyễn Kim Hồng profile, Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute