The River Knows Our Names

Status Script Development

Country Vietnam

Synopsis

In a stateless community living on houseboats on the Mekong near the Cambodia-Vietnam border, two families chance upon two dead people’s ID cards which lead to an opportunity to move ashore. Being called by a new (first) full name brings laughter and hope until escaping to another life proves to be harder than holding a piece of paper.

Director

Mai Huyen Chi (or Chi Mai) is a writer and director from Vietnam. In 2020, Chi started developing “The River Knows Our Names”, which will be her feature-length directorial debut. The project won Far East Udine Award at Hongkong’s Film Financing Forum, thus travelled to Focus Asia Co-production Market (2020 Far East Film Festival), and went through Locarno Consultancy-Creative Production. She is now working on the second draft.

Producers

Pedro Román was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, Román moved to London after finishing his degree in Media. It was in the British capital where Román really started his filming career, working at Tigerlily Films while developing a handful of shorts that competed at some international festivals. Román then moved to Ho Chi Minh City, where he started developing his first feature film.

Lê Chi Janny is a Vietnamese-Canadian film producer with an interest in social issues & community-focused narratives, and a background in Hispanic & Translation studies. After several years of living and working in Spain, she moved to her parents’ hometown of Saigon, Vietnam in 2018 and has since worked on several productions for NGOs, documentaries, music videos and TV series. Currently, she is producing the feature film The River Knows Our Names and the short film Saigon Kiss by Hồng Anh Nguyễn.