The winners were announced Saturday morning. The New Currents jury, headed by British director Mike Figgis, praised the Vietnamese film for its impressive use of “real, live locations” and “very satisfying” ending, the U.S.-based leading entertainment news site Variety reported.

The triumph of “Rom” at Busan has come as a surprise because the movie’s producers had previously written to the Busan festival organizers asking that it be withdrawn after Vietnamese cinema authorities said it had not been certified by the local censor board.

However, the organizing board of the film festival decided to screen the movie.

Developed from the critically acclaimed short film “4:30 p.m.”, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, the movie is about a teenage boy named Rom who lives in a slum in Saigon and sells lottery tickets for people in the neighborhood. His aim is to collect enough money to find his parents, who had abandoned him as a child.

Directed by Tran Dung Thanh Huy, “Rom“ is the first Vietnamese entry to receive the New Currents Award, which is given to the two best feature films selected from the first or second works of new Asian directors introduced in the category.

“Haifa Street”, the other winner of the prize, was praised as “a mature, grown up movie” made by a director that “exhibited a confidence and understanding of cinema language which sets the film apart.”

A grand prize of $30,000 was awarded to each of the two films.

The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), held October 3-10 this year, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. This year, organizers said they had screened 299 films, of which 118 were world premieres, from 85 countries and territories. The screenings were watched by more than 189,000 people.

Indie rock singer William McCarthy from the U.S., South African R&B artists Nonku Phiri and HCMC-based pop-punk band 7Uppercuts are some of the artists who will take the main stage this year.

The second stage will feature Fleetmac Wood, a dance crew that exclusively perform Fleetwood Mac remixes, local DJ Jase Nguyen and U.S. DJ collective West Loop Chicago, who will be the final act of the festival.

Saigon’s top craft brewers will serve ice-cold beer on tap, and pop-up food stations will serve a wide variety of dishes as indie and hip-hop acts are performed on two stages from 5 p.m. till early next morning. Organizers will provide festival goers with free drinking water to avoid the beach getting littered with plastic bottles.

The performances will take place on Ho Tram beach, a two-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City, so festival goers can not only listen to good music, but also enjoy stunning sunrises and sunsets. They can also have fun paddling, flying kites and riding jet-skis.

Ticket prices for the festival range from VND1.5-25 million ($66-1,096). For more information on tickets, visit here.

It will display 1,300 paper butterflies made by children including disabled and autistic ones from Vietnam and elsewhere, along with 20 artworks by Ahn and five disabled South Korean painters.

The event is part of the “Become a Butterly” project launched by Ahn in 2013 to help break the barrier between disabled people and others to bring them closer together.

Under the project, exhibitions have been held in many cities around the world like Brussels (Belgium), New York (the U.S.) Bali, Jakarta (Indonesia), Beijing (China), Nairobi (Kenya), Paris (France) and more.

Ahn has also organized 78 exhibitions and 80 other activities with disabled and autistic children.

The Korean Cultural Center is at 49 Nguyen Du Street. The exhibition will be on weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The winners of the #Love2019 Awards will be chosen from the 50 finalists short-listed from 15,093 entries on the themes of family love, couple love, animal love … to spread the message of love.

“Forever in Love” by Ngo Van Diep captures a moment when the old couple in non la hats look at each other and smile in a place surrounded by trees.

This is not the first time a Vietnamese photo is winning honors in a contest on photography app Agora Images. In the #Beauty2019 Awards, Le Van Vinh won for his photo of a yellow sunbird by a flower in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum.

The photo of Le Van Vinh that won Agora Images’ #Beauty2019 award. Photo courtesy of Le Van Vinh/Agora Images.

The winner of #Love2019 will be announced on September 12, with the first prize getting $1,000. Diep’s photo is currently in the top 10 in terms of number of votes.

Agora Images is one of the biggest international photo contests.

Photographers upload their best shots on the application to participate. Each year there are many contests on different themes such as animals, love and family.

“Cu Li Khong Bao Gio Khoc” (Cu Li Never Cries), a full length feature film debut by director Pham Ngoc Lan, won the ARTE International Open Doors and Sorfond awards.

Another Vietnamese film, “Tro Tan Ruc Ro” (Glorious Ashes), directed by Bui Thac Chuyen and produced by Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, won the CNC award.

The other winners were two young directors Duong Dieu Linh and Le Quynh Anh, who got the Moulin d’André-CEC and Rotterdam Lab awards, respectively.

In “Cu Li Khong Bao Gio Khoc”, M, a retired worker in Vietnam returns to Berlin after learning her estranged German husband has died, and finds that he has left her an urn with his ashes and Cu Li, his dog. Upon returning to Vietnam, M finds that her pregnant niece Van is rushing into marriage. M begins to recount her own experiences, fearing that Van would make the same mistakes as she did.

The film receives a lot of media attention after it was screened at the film festival. The Variety magazine said it was an impressive mix of Vietnam’s past and present.

This was not the first award for “Tro Tan Ruc Ro”. The film had won an award at the Busan Film Festival in 2017.

This year’s Locarno International Film Festival, its 72nd edition, is taking place from August 7-17.