Trinh T. Minh-ha

Born in Vietnam, Trinh T. Minh-ha is a filmmaker, writer and composer. Her works include: the films "The Fourth Dimension" (87 mins, 2001), "A Tale of Love" (108 mins, 1995), an experimental narrative, "Shoot for the Contents" (102 mins, 1991), a film on culture, art and politics in China, "Surname Viet Given Name Nam" (108 mins, 1989), a film on identity and culture through the struggle of Vietnamese women, "Naked Spaces: Living is Round" (135 mins, 1985), "Reassemblage" (40 mins, 1982); the books "Cinema Interval" (1999), "Drawn from African Dwellings" (in coll. With Jean-Paul Bourdier, 1996), "Framer Framed" (on film, 1992), "When the Moon Waxes Red" (on feminism, 1989), "En minuscules" (poems, 1987), "African Spaces: Designs for Living in Upper Volta" (in coll. With J. P. Bourdier, 1985), and "Un Art sans oeuvre" (on contemporary arts, 1981); and a multi-media installation,"Nothing But Ways" (in coll. With Lynne Kirby, 1999).

The recipient of several awards and grants (including the AFI National Independent Filmmaker Maya Deren Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Film Institute, and the California Arts Council), her films have shown widely in the States, in Canada, Senegal, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as in Europe and Asia (including in Italy, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Japan, India, Taiwan, Jerusalem, with twenty-four retrospectives in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Slovenia, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, and Hong Kong). "Reassemblage" was exhibited at The New York Film Festival (1983) and has toured the country with the Asian American Film festival among other festivals. "Naked Spaces" received the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Experimental Feature at the American International Film Festival and the Golden Athena Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Athens International Film Festival in 1986; it toured nationally and internationally with the 1987 Biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art. "Surname Viet Given Name Nam" has received the Merit Award from the Bombay International Film Festival, the Film as Art Award from the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film and Video Festival. "Shoot for the Contents" won the Jury’s Best Cinematography Award at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Athens International Film Festival, and toured internationally with the 1993 Biennale of the Whitney Museum. Her more recent film, "A Tale of Love", has shown internationally in over twenty-four film festivals. Her latest release is Night Passage (2004).

Trinh Minh-ha has traveled and lectured extensively in the States, as well as in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on film, art, feminism, and cultural politics. She taught at the National Conservatory of Music in Dakar, Senegal (1977-80); at universities such as Cornell, San Francisco State, Smith, and Harvard; and is Professor of Women’s Studies, Film Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. (03/02)

The Fourth Dimension
A film by Trinh T. Minh-ha
Produced by Jean-Paul Bourdier and Trinh T. Minh-ha, 2001, 87 min., Color
Acclaimed filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha ventures into the digital realm with her stunning new feature, THE FOURTH DIMENSION, an incisive and insightful e...

Naked Spaces
Produced by Jean-Paul Bourdier
Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1985, 135 min., Color
Shot with stunning elegance and clarity, NAKED SPACES explores the rhythm and ritual of life in the rural environments of six West African countries (...

Night Passage
Directed and produced by Trinh T. Minh-ha and Jean-Paul Bourdier, 2004, 98 min., Color
Made in homage to Kenji Miyazawa’s children’s sci-fi classic MILKY WAY RAILROAD, NIGHT PASSAGE is the latest experimental feature from celebrated film...

Reassemblage
Co-produced by Jean-Paul Bourdier
Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1982, 40 min., Color
Women are the focus but not the object of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s influential first film, a complex visual study of the women of rural Senegal. Through a c...

Shoot for the Contents
Co-produced by Jean-Paul Bourdier
Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1991, 101 min., Color
Reflecting on Mao’s famous saying, “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend,” Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film—whose title refer...

Surname Viet Given Name Nam
Assoc. produced by Jean-Paul Bourdier
Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1989, 108 min., Color
Of marriage and loyalty: “Daughter, she obeys her father/ Wife, she obeys her husband/ Widow, she obeys her son.” ...

A Tale of Love
A film by Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1995, 108 min., Color
Portraying the Vietnamese immigrant experience through Kieu, A TALE OF LOVE follows the quest of a woman in love with ‘Love’. The film is loosely ins...