For two consecutive years, Viet Film Fest has broken its own record number of animated short film submissions and acceptances. This virtual version of “Drawn to the Screen” will showcase six of the ten animated shorts that were accepted to VFF this year. Prior to VFF 2024’s quartet of accepted animated shorts, no edition of the festival had ever more than two animated shorts at a time. VFF 2025 also marks an unprecedented third festival in a row in which at least one animated short was nominated for the Grand Jury Trống Đồng Award for Best Short Film – with Mai Phuong Nguyen’s Chez Moi (VFF 2016) being the sole animated winner in that category.

From student films such as Conductor’s Crescendo, Re:connection, and These Yellow Stars of Ours; independent works like Ba Noi and Little Persimmon; and a film from a major Vietnamese animation studio in Zombie Lag – 15 Minutes Before Apocalypse, animators of Vietnamese descent have been breaking into the world of animated cinema on their own terms. Together, these films will remind audiences of the versatility of animated moviemaking, and how animation can express ideas unbounded by our reality.

A special panel on the experiences, inspirations, and artistry of animation filmmakers of Vietnamese descent will follow this screening.

By Eric Nong