Directed by Nguyễn Hồng Nghi and Phạm Kỳ Nam • 1959 • North Vietnam
Starring Phi Nga, Mạnh Linh, Song Kim

The first feature shot in North Vietnam is a stirring, strongly anticolonialist tale of two lovers, Vận (Mạnh Linh) a guerrilla fighter for the North, and Hoài (Phi Nga), a young woman from the South, who find themselves separated across the Bến Hải River following the partition of the country. Shot in poetic black and white and attuned to the rituals of everyday life along the river, this milestone of Vietnamese cinema powerfully dramatizes the human toll of the country’s division.