The warm voice of Cao Thị Hậu, an elderly woman from a rural region in Vietnam, carries this tactile documentary. She belongs to the Rục community, an ethnic minority that lived in isolation in caves until the 1950s, when the government relocated them to villages. Today she lives with her grandchildren, to whom she lovingly passes on the fragile Rục language and traditional knowledge. Intimate observations, filmed on grainy 16 mm, reveal the beauty of small everyday moments, the tenderness of family ties and the quiet strength with which she keeps her culture and tradition alive. The result is a poetic family portrait, in which the sound of leaves, mud, and dripping water forms an acoustic score that stimulates the senses and evokes quiet wonder.
“As images reach us in fragments, sound weaves a continuity from off-screen to on-screen, carrying the emotion through the film and irrigating the streams of images, like water flowing.”
Cátia Rodrigues & Charlyne Genoud / Variety
“At the outset, before anything became concrete, we made a quiet decision: we would make this film for pleasure. We didn’t want the film’s scale to be overgrown. There is a certain joy in making something close at hand, in quietness and with a calm rhythm. Most of the time on set, we were waiting—waiting for the rain to come or to go away, for the valley to transform into a temporary lake, for the children to finish school, for Mrs. Hậu to retrieve her wandering calf. And while waiting, we found ourselves listening to many beautiful things.”
Trương Minh Quý & Nicolas Graux / Director’s Letter
“Hair, Paper, Water is a sensorial wonder first and foremost, inviting any outsiders to feel the contrast themselves with its immersive sound and careful camerawork honing in on the most minute details that are the building blocks for any environment (...).”
Stephen Saito / The Moveable Fest
“Shot on 16mm with an old Bolex camera, the film feels homemade: the frame breathes moss green, skin, and paper fibers. These are not polished tableaux, but lively, grainy snapshots that make time tangible—like opening a family archive scented with rain.”
Film Fest Gent
“Though the film is visually striking—Graux himself served as cinematographer—the true magic happens in your ears. The tactile sound design (by Ernst Karel and Trương Minh Quý) lets you hear the images: the texture of leaves, mud underfoot, water dripping in dark hollows. Rather than a lush score, the film offers an acoustic composition written with natural sounds and breath. A sensory learning process emerges: you don’t just follow the growth of her grandson Doanh’, you feel how language and landscape resonate together. Drop by drop, memory becomes music.”
Film Fest Gent
