Film Screening: Au Menu—L'Odeur de la papaye verte (The Scent of Green Papaya)

In celebration Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Alliance is delighted to screen Vietnamese-French director Trần Anh Hùng’s 1993 drama *L’odeur de la papaye verte (The Scent of Green Papaya*). This screening is part of our gastronomy-themed film series, “Au menu”—* à table !*

In September, we screened Hùng’s first film, La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things). Now, discover his first work: L’Odeur de la papaye verte, a film of great slowness and beauty showing the condition of women in a bourgeois Saigon family before the Second World War.

Enjoy a complimentary glass of Bourgogne Louis Jadot and a chance to win a gift certificate to Sofitel’s Le Bar at this screening!

Post-screening discussion with Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English & Gender Studies at Northwestern University. Series curated by Nick Davis, Ryan Waldron, and Maude Delvinquière.

Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for a complimentary glass of wine. Program at 6:30. Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave. Non-alcoholic options will be available

About the Director

Trần Anh Hùng

Trần Anh Hùng was born in Vietnam in 1962 and moved to Paris at the age of 12, after the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, in 1975 with his family. He studied philosophy at a university in France. However, as soon as he saw Robert Bresson’s film A Man on the Run and decided to study film instead at the cole Lumiere, he made his first short film, an elegant ghost story, La Femme Mariée de Nam Xuong and then, two years later his second short, The Stone of Waiting. The Scent of Green Papaya is his first feature length film.

Hùng has been at the forefront of a wave of acclaimed overseas Vietnamese cinema over the past two decades. His films have received international recognition and acclaim, including an Oscar-nominated debut (for Best Foreign Film) with The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), which also won two top prizes at the 46th Cannes Film Festival (1993). His follow-up, Cyclo (1995), starring Hong Kong film star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Recently, he returned in a French production, La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things) in 2023, which won him the Best Director award at the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

About Nick Davis

Nick Davis

Nick Davis is Associate Professor of English, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University, where his research and teaching focus on commercial narrative cinema around the world, most often from feminist and LGBTQ angles of analysis. He also convenes a monthly lecture series around Chicago called Digging Deeper into Movies, in partnership with the Chicago Film Festival, was a longtime Contributing Editor at Film Comment magazine, and has published film reviews for nearly 25 years at Nick-Davis.com.