The main story is a journey through 30 years of ups and downs of Vietnamese women’s football, from young girls with bare feet to the wonderful moment when the team won a ticket to the World Cup.
Sharing with Thanh Nien, Director Nguyen Thi Tham said that the film is not only a story but also a gift she wants to give to her characters on Vietnamese Women’s Day, October 20.
As the name suggests, this is a film about many firsts, the main film about the Vietnamese women’s football team tells the story of the first time Vietnam won a ticket to the World Cup.
The film takes the audience through three periods of Vietnamese women’s football, starting from the time Mr. Tran Thanh Ngu founded the women’s football team at Locale 1 (HCMC). At that time, the players were still barefoot, playing football on the road.
Step by step, the playing style of the Vietnamese women’s team has become more and more perfect and skillful thanks to the efforts of the female players and coaches.
After 30 years of tireless efforts, the mighty band played the Song of Praise to the Vietnamese public at the world’s most famous competition. This was a remarkable moment for the country and the film contributed to making those moments resonate deeply in the hearts of the crowd.
For 80 minutes, the crowd gathered and listened to stories from players and coaches who have been pillars of Vietnamese women’s football through many periods, such as Luu Ngoc Mai, Kim Hong, My Oanh, Kieu Trinh…
The coaching courses in Germany, Poland and the trip to win tickets to the World Cup are the moments that best demonstrate Nguyen Thi Tham’s filmmaking style.
At this stage, the producers get closer to the characters, delving deeper into the emotions of players who are devoted to the game but are actually just innocent, happy young girls.
Nguyen Thi Tham captured the players’ thoughts, so her photos were filled with emotions, peaceful moments intertwined with happy, normal moments so that the female players did not hesitate to act naturally in front of the camera.
Although Tham said the time was short, it was enough to help her immerse herself in the character and fully exploit the depth of the character.
Only after the filming process was cut did the friendship between Tham and the characters become closer, to the point that when the film was released, the female leader became the older sister of the actors.
For the audience, the film is just a story on the big screen, but for the women’s football team, it was a memory because of Tham that they had the opportunity to recall. They quickly clapped when the net shook on the screen, and they were also moved by the sharing of their colleagues who fought together.
From the “newbie football” style of the original women’s football to the intentional strategies and leading methods that Mr. Mai Duc Chung and his students have demonstrated is a long journey to nurture Vietnamese football in general and football in particular.
“The editing part is extremely important because there is a lot of material, the team needs to arrange the details for each shot, but sometimes it fails. Every night when I come home from work, I have to stress about what to shoot tomorrow and how to shoot it,” Nguyen Thi Tham shared.
Tham and the film crew could not go to New Zealand to directly record the remarkable runs of the young Vietnamese girls on the world’s top football field, the moment the Vietnamese Citizen Song resounded at the World Cup or the spectacular save of goalkeeper Kim Thanh when facing the excellent player of the US team Alex Morgan.
The team had to buy the pieces. copyrighted FIFA videos to make the film. Therefore, the ending of the film lacks an inner point, so the emotions of the individuals associated with the memorable moments on the World Cup field are not fully expressed in the film.
Or conversely, to retell the story of the past, the group watched films about many matches of the Vietnamese women’s team from the early days when recording technology was still in its early stages. Interesting film sources, unfortunate possibilities or difficult access have made a large number of verifiable matches that the film needs to tell extremely vague, and many ideas had to be abandoned due to lack of films.
Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, creative director of the film, said that Vietnam Women’s Football – The Main Story not only aims to honor female players but also helps people understand more about Vietnamese culture and people through football. After being shown at locations in Vietnam, the film will soon be shown globally.
Sharing with Thanh Nien, Director Nguyen Thi Tham said she will not make this film in the usual way because she likes to make films freely, freely pursuing her thoughts without being controlled or forced by a schedule like a football film.