EXCLUSIVE: Bangkok-based sales agent Diversion has boarded Ash Mayfair’s Vietnamese transgender drama Skin Of Youth, which is set to compete at the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF).
Following 2018 debut The Third Wife, which premiered at Toronto and won more than 20 awards worldwide, Mayfair’s second feature focuses on the turbulent romance between a transgender sex worker seeking to realise her dream of living in a woman’s body and an underground cage fighter in 1990s Saigon.
It marks the first Vietnamese fiction feature to cast a transperson in the leading role. Main actress Tran Quan is a 19-year-old trans girl who has not previously acted on screen. She stars opposite Vo Dien Gia Huy from 2023 mystery thriller Fanti and horror TV series Devil’s Diner.
“Our working condition was exceptionally difficult. Being openly queer and trans is yet to be fully accepted in our country,” said writer-director Mayfair, who spent several months with the cast, rewriting the dialogue and visiting locations in the story to familiarise themselves with the world of the characters.
The film is a story 15 years in the making since her brother told her that he was transgender aged two and is now 17. “In the process of trying to understand my brother, I have learned a tremendous amount from the LGBTQ community,” she said. “The young transpeople I have met in Vietnam ever since have inspired and impressed me endlessly with their resilience and their light. This film is my attempt to share a small part of their journey.”
Mayfair lives between Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City. The film is one of four winners of the NYU Purple List for the best unproduced screenplays written by graduates and is a semi-finalist of the Academy Nicholls Competition in 2020. Her feature debut, The Third Wife, earned three Spirit Award nominations, including the Someone To Watch category for herself.
Skin Of Youth is a co-production between Vietnam’s Annam Productions and Donga Films, Singapore’s Akanga Film Asia, Japan’s Bitters End and US outfit Mayfair Pictures. The film received a theatrical release in Japan through Bitters End in March and will have its North American premiere at NYAFF on July 24, where it will compete for the Uncaged Award.
Diversion has acquired worldwide sales rights outside Vietnam, Singapore and Japan. The deal was handled by Diversion’s Mai Meksawan and the film’s delegate producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc of Annam Productions.
Also on Diversion’s slate is Bangladeshi filmmaker Mahde Hasan’s debut feature Sand City, which is set to world premiere at Karlovy Vary in July.
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