08/07/2025 - Dužan Duong’s debut feature paints a portrait of the Vietnamese diaspora in the early-2000s Czech Republic through a family triptych

l-r: Doan Hoang Anh, Bui The Duong, To Tien Tai and Le Quynh Lan in Summer School, 2001

Czech-Vietnamese newcomer Dužan Duong has premiered his feature-length debut, Summer School, 2001 [+see also:
interview: Dužan Duong
film profile], in the Special Screenings section of the Karlovy Vary IFF. Set against the backdrop of early-2000s West Bohemia, the movie offers a multifaceted portrait of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic. Through a triptych narrative centred on a single family, the film explores intergenerational tensions, cultural displacement and the negotiation of identity within the immigrant experience.

Structured around the perspectives of a father and his two sons, the film traces the emotional fallout of a critical incident while exposing the frictions of integration, masculinity and family dynamics. The dad, Dung (Doan Hoang Anh), runs a small clothing stall at a local market. However, debts push him into dependence on a local Vietnamese crime figure, to whom he owes favours regarding both of his sons, as the mobster gained access to education for the younger one, Tai (To Tien Tai), and procured papers to relocate his 17-year-old son Kien (Bui The Duong) from Vietnam to join the family in the Czech Republic. The picture begins with an accident that lands Tai in hospital, while the triptych of interlinked perspectives gradually reveals what has happened. The episodes form a dynamic family portrait addressing questions of identity, displacement and generational divides.

Although each segment draws from different genre conventions, Duong maintains a consistent visual and tonal approach across the film. The cinematography by Adam Mach (Victim [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michal Blaško
film profile]) favours natural lighting that aligns with the emotional tenor of each segment. The episodic structure allows for shifts in narrative rhythm while sustaining a coherence that gradually reveals the family’s internal dynamics. The first episode, centred on Dung, plays out as a crime-drama. It examines the father’s moral dilemma as he is forced to choose between loyalty to his community and obligations to a figure who essentially controls his working and living prospects. The second episode follows Tai in what is framed as a coming-of-age summer story. Enrolled in the titular summer school to prepare for his upcoming studies, he also navigates adolescent rites of passage, capturing the levity of youth.

The final segment, viewed through Kien’s perspective, takes a more introspective turn. Having lived with his grandmother in Vietnam for most of his life, Kien now faces the challenge of adjusting not only to a new country, but also to family members whom he has not lived with for years. He joins the same summer school class as his younger brother in order to improve his Czech. The episode subtly transitions into a psychological portrait, reflecting Kien’s struggle with cultural dislocation, isolation, unresolved emotional trauma from abandonment, and emerging queer desire. Although the episodes are structured sequentially, each adds a dimension to the overarching narrative, with perspectives intersecting and revealing further insight into the characters and their dynamic in the family unit as well as within the close-knit community.

Summer School, 2001 is billed as the first Czech “Viet-film” and draws on the director’s experience, which is rendered as an autofiction. Duong shifts between coming-of-age, crime-drama and psychological introspection, in what is essentially a family drama that addresses arthouse as well as mainstream-leaning audiences. However, given that the majority of the dialogue is in Vietnamese, the film appears primarily intended for the diaspora, portraying a community in transition while offering others a glimpse into its communal life.

Summer School, 2001 was produced by nutprodukce (Czech Republic) along with AZN kru (Czech Republic) and nutprodukcia (Slovakia), in co-production with Czech Television.