Bạch Diệp

Director · Hanoï, French Indochina [now Vietnam]

People’s Artist Bạch Diệp (1929 - 17/8/2013) was a Vietnamese film director and screenwriter. She was considered one of the most influential directors in early Vietnamese cinema, and also its very first female director.

Born into a well-off Catholic family in Hanoi, Bạch Diệp first began her career as a journalist for Nhân Dân newspaper. In 1959, she applied for the government’s training course on film directing (the only woman to do so) and started working for Vietnam Feature Film Studio after her graduation in 1963. Bạch Diệp’s debut feature “Trần Quốc Toản ra quân”(1971) was an immediate hit; the film clinched the highest accolade at that year’s Vietnam Film Festival. Her works in the subsequent years were also critical successes and universally lauded by the public, especially “Ngày Lễ Thánh” and “Huyền thoại người mẹ”; each film earned a Golden Lotus award, and regarded as hallmarks of 20th century Vietnamese cinema. In addition to her contributions to cinema, Bạch Diệp was also renowned for being an artistic muse to composer Tử Phác, and the only wife of the famous poet Xuân Diệu.

Where to start: Narrow Alley (1988).