smART - School Mentoring & Art Resources Team "REEL FILMMAKING"

When: Saturday, Nov. 3
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Where: Nguoi Viet Community Room
14771 Moran Street, Westminster, CA 92683
Contact: (714) 893-6145 or vaala91@yahoo.com

The Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) is launching its first smART workshop called "Reel Filmmaking." This free workshop will be led by filmmakers Ham Tran, Roland Nguyen and Jenni Trang Le from 10 a.m - 5 p.m. at Nguoi Viet Community Room, Westminster. These talented individuals will teach 30 students from HOPE, a UCLA-based program that outreaches to youths who are at an educational disadvantage, to learn about the art of filmmaking. The 13 to 18-year-old students will learn about the different aspects in filmmaking such as script writing, acting, and camera work. They will see how films are made and will make their own short film!

The smART Program is created by VAALA to provide FREE year-round, after-school art workshops to various youth organizations in the community. The goals of the smART Program are to introduce students to the arts, encourage creativity and self-expression, broaden career options and to help students develop a deep, lifelong appreciation for the arts. The smART Program also creates opportunities for artist mentors in the community to play a leadership role.

Youth participants' ages will range from 6 to 18. The smART Program provides workshops in filmmaking, painting, drawing, photography, T-shirt making, sculpture, music, Vietnamese traditional music, performing arts, poetry, spoken word, among other creative forms of expression. Youth groups in the community may apply to receive the smART Program starting January 2008. Applications will be available on www.vaala.org .

"We are so inspired by the missions of HOPE and [the] reaching out to community organizations like VAALA that we have decided to develop a program called 'smART' with the slogan 'Artists as Mentors,'" said VAALA President Ysa Le. Le and other VAALA board members have worked closely with the artists and HOPE Director Alex Banh to develop the mentorship program.

If you would like to sponsor the smART Program, please contact VAALA at vaala91@yahoo.com or (714) 893-6145.

Upcoming smART Program workshops for HOPE Program (dates to be announced):

January 2008 "Introduction to Digital Photography" - Lead by Brian Doan, MFA Westminster High School

April 2008 "Spoken-Word" Westminster High School Filmmakers' Bio

Ham Tran - Filmmaker
Ham Tran graduated from UCLA with a master's degree in film and television. His short films have won numerous accolades, including the National Finalist for the Student Academy Awards for two years-in-a-row for his short films THE PRESCRIPTION and POMEGRANATE. Tran's thesis film THE ANNIVERSARY won over 30 international awards, including the prestigious USA Film Festival award for Best Short Film. In 2004, THE ANNIVERSARY was a Semi-Finalist for the Academy Awards for Best Live Action Short. Tran's first feature debut "Journey from the Fall" world-premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and has garnered over 10 awards in worldwide film festivals. Imaginasian Entertainment releases the film theatrically in Spring 2007. The DVD of JOURNEY FROM THE FALL is now available at Blockbuster Online, Netflix and Amazon.com.

Roland Nguyen - Filmmaker
Roland Nguyen was the first Vietnamese baby born in North Dakota. As a child, his biggest influences came from the original Star Wars films, as well as from Hong Kong martial arts television serials that were dubbed into Vietnamese. Nguyen graduated from Bismarck High School in 1994 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

Jenni Trang Le - Filmmaker, Spoken Word Artist
Jenni Trang Le graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology from UCLA. In 1999, she began crafting stories in performance art and cultural debauchery with Club O' Noodles, a Vietnamese American theatre troupe. This led to her involvement with the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) and the Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF) in 2003.

In 2003, Le worked on Ham Tran's JOURNEY FROM THE FALL as the office coordinator. After that, she has been involved in numerous film productions as talent liaison and associate producer of HOLLY (2003, directed by Guy Moshe), a film about child prostitution in the gritty reality of Cambodia. She has also held the role as first assistant director of FINDING MADISON (2005, directed by Tuan Tran), OWL AND THE SPARROW (2006, directed by Stephane Gauger) and, most recently, the action romance period film THE REBEL (2006, directed by Charlie Nguyen). In January 2007, Le received the Armed with a Camera Fellowship through Visual Communications where she wrote, directed and animated a 5-minute claymation entitled OH MOMMY! (M? ?i!). OH MOMMY! was Le's directorial debut and she is proud to flow within the creative waters of the new Viet Film Wave, weaving stories and interlacing visuals that touch the soul.

Participating Organizations
HOPE - The Higher Opportunity Program for Education
The Higher Opportunity Program for Education (HOPE) is a student-initiated project founded by the Vietnamese Student Union (VSU) at UCLA in 1999. HOPE is committed to outreaching for youths who are at an educational disadvantage. HOPE exists to raise consciousness of and provide access to higher education through holistic empowerment. It promotes self-sufficiency and leadership through academic, personal and community empowerment. HOPE develops its students through peer advising, tutoring, workshops, field trips and high school conferences. Under the support of the Student-Initiated Access Committee (SIAC) and the direction of VSU, HOPE strives to achieve its goals toward educational equity for all.

VAALA - Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association
Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization founded in 1991 by a group of Vietnamese-American journalists, artists and friends. VAALA's mission is to support artists to enrich Vietnamese arts and culture. VAALA creates opportunities for artists to interact with their audience, and facilitates dialogue among different ethnic groups through various forms of art. VAALA has served thousands of audience members through many activities such as exhibitions, performances, recitals, symposiums, panel discussions and the biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF). VAALA's events have been extensively covered by local, national and international press. VAALA is a member of Arts Orange County.