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"Diep Hoang Nguyen's sly, sensual, politically probing debut is a knocked-up drama with a difference." – Variety
Awarded Best Film at the Venice International Film Critics' week, the debut feature from Vietnamese director Diep Hoang Nguyen (a producer on MIFF 2011's Bi, Don't Be Afraid!) is a visually distinct, emotionally tender evocation of a teenage girl's pregnancy that's quite unlike any before it.
Pregnant to her deadbeat, cock-fighting boyfriend, Hanoi teenager Huyen desperately tries to raise cash for an abortion. Seeking help from her transgender sex-worker flatmate, Huyen finds herself in alien territory involving male fetishes.
With revered Vietnamese auteur Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya) onboard as a special consultant, Nguyen has made a singular cinematic bow – an unusually raw and ethereal exploration of the female form, complete with a Cronenbergian dream sequence – that marks her as a director with an exciting vision to watch.
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