How to Improve the World

How to Improve the World is a film about sound; about ear culture that is gradually losing out to eye culture due to globalisation. In an indigenous society in Vietnam’s central highlands, a singer and storyteller speaks about listening, revealing how memory, history, and hearing are deeply intertwined in this community.

Filmmaker Nguyen Trinh Thi interlards this long interview with images of the social and cultural life, recorded music, and incidental references to the influence of Western culture on the younger generations, who are primarily visually oriented. The film that subtly draws connections between loss of land, forest, religion, way of life, and cultural heritage is balanced by Nguyen’s emphasis on the richness of sound, thereby demonstrating that what you see is just half the story.

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Available on Festival Scope Pro from 26 January 9:00 CET to 14 February 9:00 CET