STORYTELLERS
NGUYEN HUU TUONG VI
Film Producer
NGUYEN HUU TUONG VI
Nguyen Huu Tuong Vi has become one of Vietnam’s leading film producers, with her two most recent collaborations with director Tran Thanh grossing a combined $40M at the Vietnam box office—a record no other producer has matched. Her latest, MAI (2024), is now the highest-grossing Vietnamese film of all time, surpassing $23M worldwide.
Though she started her career as a screenwriter at BHD Media Corp. after a Ford Foundation course in 2007, she gradually shifted toward producing. In 2018, she co-wrote and produced My Mr. Wife, which ignited her passion for film production. Subsequent projects included Invisible Evidence (2020) and Bo Gia (2021), the first Vietnam-produced film to earn over $1M in the U.S.
Her strategic instincts proved decisive: she persuaded Tran Thanh to partner with CJ HK Entertainment, leading to back-to-back Tet releases in 2023 and 2024. These films collectively redefined what a local blockbuster could achieve, far exceeding the traditional $4M benchmark.
Despite her producer role, Tuong Vi remains a storyteller at heart, cherishing the development phase most. She aspires to back films that are both uplifting and impactful, believing in cinema’s power to inspire.
HUYEN CHI MAI
Film Director-Writer
HUYEN CHI MAI
Mai Huyền Chi is a Vietnamese filmmaker whose work explores the politics of memory, identity, and belonging. Her films center on underrepresented Vietnamese experiences, focusing on lives often overlooked within dominant narratives. She approaches filmmaking as an act of care, blending narrative and non-narrative forms with a strong grounding in community practice.
In 2025, she completed 50 Years of Forgetting, a documentary commissioned by Al Jazeera that traces the legacy of the Vietnam War and its emotional and historical afterlives. The film reached over 100,000 views in its first ten days. Her short film The River Runs Still premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2025, and her feature project The River Knows Our Names won the Tokyo Talents Award in 2024.
As a screenwriter, Chi has contributed to three feature films: My Mr. Wife (2018, Best Film, Golden Kite Awards), A Brixton Tale (UK, 2022, Cineuropa Award, Festival International du Film de Mons), and The Girl from Dak Lak (Vietnam–Spain, 2022, IndieLisboa nominee), which she also co-directed.
Beyond her films, she is the founder of Cinema CNN (Cinema Con Nhà Nghèo), a grassroots screening initiative dedicated to independent Vietnamese and diasporic cinema, recognized as “The Most Meaningful Project” of 2024 by Hanoi Grapevine. Her writing has appeared in Mekong Review, MARG1N, Matca, and It's A Living: Work and Life in Vietnam Today.
She is currently developing the screenplay for The River Knows Our Names, her debut feature.
CURATOR
Irene Öhler - Founder of Lightpath Leadership, is passionate about leadership development and women's empowerment. Irene has more than 20 years of international experience in HR development, having worked with Fortune 500 corporates and governments in Europe, China, Brazil, New Zealand, and Vietnam as an executive coach and consultant, Her mission is to ignite leadership and support organizations to nurture talent, through executive coaching and delivery of programs designed especially for female executives.
Since her arrival in Vietnam in 2012, Irene has become a sought-after expert in Vietnam for her work to promote women's leadership. she is the co-author of a best-selling book on Vietnamese women leaders, Ba Trieu's 21st Century Daughters, Stories of Remarkable Vietnamese Women. She also curates the unique live event series, the Women's Storytelling Salon in Hanoi and HCMC.
Since 2014, Irene has organized 36 Women's Storytelling Salons in Hanoi, HCMC and Danang as well as tailored SALONS for Flinders University's Women's Leadership Development Programmes.
