Break out the popcorn for the 42nd annual Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival. This year brings a record number of submissions, and 23 of them — including two award-winning films — hail from the borough.
Family is an important theme for the month-long fest. This year’s winner for “Best Feature Documentary,” “Oh, Saigon” (pictured) by Brooklyn Heights resident Doan Hoang, follows the filmmaker’s family members as they leave Vietnam — and charts her own work to uncover their story. Hoang’s film will be shown on May 9 as part of the Brooklyn filmmakers program at the Brooklyn Museum.
Another set of winners, who are also part of the May 9 line-up, are Bushwick residents Daniel Garcia and Rania Attieh, who focused on travel, too. The duo’s film, “Almost Brooklyn,” which won the award for “Best Short Narrative,” is about a man who gets into a taxicab to visit the borough for the first time.
These Brooklyn filmmakers are pleased to be showing their work as part of this local tradition.
Said Hoang, who spent seven years making her doc, “I am really happy to have home support.”
The Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival runs from April 29 through May 29 at theaters borough-wide. For information and a complete schedule, call (718) 625-0080 or visit www.brooklynartscouncil.org.
