5

5 (five) (2004)

(13')Mentor director/camera/editor Robert Nugent

Being taught to read and write on the Vietnam / Lao border. 

I am very fond of this film. '5' was one of several films I made with Belgium Technical Cooperation in northern Vietnam during 2004 - 2006. I was training local staff from the Quỳ Châu district TV station in Nghệ An Province to assist in making films following activities on a rural development project. I made three visits over three years.  This film shows the social complexity of the Government's provision of literacy skills to a population whose first language is the Tai Mène dialect and who are functionally non-literate. The rural population are living a traditional farming way of life, which leaves little time for such things as learning to read and write in a foreign language.