The Beautiful Country (The Beautiful Country)

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The Beautiful Country
Original title	The Beautiful Country
Type	Features
Genre	Drama
Director	Hans Petter Moland
Short summary	Binh, a young Vietnamese man makes an extraordinary six-month journey from his village south of Saigon to Texas in search of his long last GI father.
Summary	Binh (20) lives with a foster family in Vietnam that treats him as the bastard he is. Binh's father was an American soldier during the Vietnam War who disappeared without a trace. When he is kicked out of his home Binh looks up his mother, who works under slave-like conditions in the big city. She is dying, and also cares for Pam, Binh's little brother. After an accident, the two brothers head out to sea and end up in a refugee camp in Malaysia. With a picture of a father from Texas, they eventually manage to board a nightmarish refugee ship destined for America. Binh, a young Vietnamese man, makes an extraordinary six-month journey from his village, 300 miles south of Saigon, all the way to a farm in Texas - in search of his long lost GI father. As he travels with his young brother, his arduous trip is almost cut short when his refugee boat breaks down. Picked up by the authorities he is then interned into a camp in Malaysia - where an opportunistic escape with another refugee, Ling, onto a smuggler's cargo boat, allows his quest to continue. Binh is then confronted by starvation, illness and an insane culture of gambling for food and water on the ocean freighter, skippered by Captain Oh. Eventually making it to New York - he discovers that he has effectively become an indentured slave to the restaurant owners he 'works' for. But for all this, his dream of finding his father never falters… Beautiful Country is an epic, highly emotional and ultimately uplifting story of one young man's seemingly impossible search for his lost father.
Cast	Damien Ngyen, Bai Ling, Tim Roth, Nick Nolte
Screenplay	Sabina Murray and Larry Gross
Based on	a story by Lindgard Jervey
D.O.P	Stuart Dryburgh
Editor	Wibecke Rønseth
Composer	Zbigniew Preisner
Sound	Kim Dalum
Scenography	Karl Juliusson
Producer	Petter Borgli, Tomas Backström, Edward Pressman, Terence Malic
Production company	Dinasun Productions LLC
Country of origin	Norway
Release date (national)	2004-02-28
Release date (international)	2004-02-11
Technical information
Format	35mm
Screen ratio	1:1,85
Colour	Colour
Sound System	Dolby SR
Length in min's	137
Length in meters	3744
No. of reels	7
International sales	Content International 19 Heddon Street - W1B 4BG London, Great Britain tel: 44 20 7851 6500 fax: 44 20 7851 6506 Mail: jamie@contentinternational.com Mail: Judith@contentinternational.com
Distributor (Norway only)	SF Norge AS
Festival participation	2004 Berlin International Film Festival: Competiton 2004 NatFilm Festival, København 2004 International Film Festival, Vilnius Spring 2004 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2004 Arsenals International Film Festival 2004 Panorama of European Cinema, Greece 2004 Cinemania, Bulgaria 2004 Braunschweig International Film Festival 2004 Stockholm International Film Festival 2004 Black Night Film Festival, Tallinn 2004 Sottodiciotto Filmfestival, Italy 2004 Bratislava International Film Festival 2005 Bangkok International Film Festival 2005 Febiofest 2005 Osian's Cinefan, India 2005 Scandinavië Festival in Rotterdam 2005 International Forum of New Cinema, Calcutta
Prizes received	2005 Kosmorama Film Festival, Trondheim: Kanon Award for Best Director, Feature Film
URL	http://www.contentinternational.com

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Director biography:
Hans Petter Moland, director A film graduate frm the USA's Emerson College, Norwegian directgor Hans Petter Moland - who adds "four boys and two girls" to his credist as co-producer - won awards for his commercials at all major festivals, including Cannes, before he had his feature debut in 1993 with "The Last Lieutenant". His film "Zero Kelvin" (1995) won him, among other awards, an Amanda - a Norwegian OScar - and the Grand Jury Prize at San Sebastian. His most recent feature was "Aberdeen" (1999), starring Stellan Skarsgård.