Erie County Smile

ERIE COUNTY SMILE is available to stream on PBS!

Events:

November 2 - 12, 2023

ERIE COUNTY SMILE is an Official Selection of the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival! Please visit their website to watch the short film and a Q & A to follow.

March 4th and 5th, 2021 at 3pm EST

EMPAC and Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute (HASS) presents screening and Q&A with filmmaker Van Tran Nguyen link to event invite:

Thursday, March 4: link

Friday, March 5: link

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March 14, 2021 at 11am EST

OPEN SOURCE GALLERY (Brooklyn, NY) presents screening and Q&A with filmmaker Van Tran Nguyen link to virtual event

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Van Tran Nguyen will introduce her newest project: a film called Erie County Smile (2021). Erie County Smile is a parody of “Paris By Night” (PBN), a popular Vietnamese-language variety show. PBN gained notoriety in the Vietnamese diasporic community by the mid-1990s and is still in production today. Music from the live shows were recorded and commonly played at Vietnamese-owned businesses all over the world. In the waiting area of my family’s nail salon, we always had PBN in the VHS player.

This film is dedicated to children of immigrants, who grew up behind doors labeled “EMPLOYEES ONLY”. Erie County Smile is a satirical short film by Van Tran Nguyen, in collaboration with Alex Derwick, Ako Shergazy, Bryan Czerniawski, and Mengtai Zhang.