Ngọc Duy Lê

Born in 2000 in Da Nang, Vietnam, Lê Ngọc Duy is a filmmaker whose work explores the politics of memory, queer expression, and Central Vietnamese heritage. Using a blend of narrative, essayistic, and archival forms drawn from his own family and hometown, his recent works question the influence of official narratives on shaping collective memory and how dominant systems construct history.

His latest short film, Before the Sea Forgets, premiered at the 2025 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, where it was nominated for the Queer Palm. A recipient of Prince Claus Fund’s Seed Award, he participated in the 2025 Locarno Filmmakers Academy and was selected as an Artist in Residence at the Kurzfilmtage Residency @ Villa Sträuli. His works have screened at festivals worldwide.

Ngọc Duy Lê participated in “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025, a first-ever poll of its kind as a collective love letter to the art of short-form moving image. yanco and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, in collaboration with Talking Shorts, invited filmmakers, curators, distributors, critics, and scholars worldwide to nominate 10 audiovisual works under sixty minutes that they personally consider the “greatest” of all time. This was Ngọc Duy Lê’s submission:

Picking only 10 'greatest' short films from over a century of cinema is an immense challenge! To choose my list, I had to go back to the beginning: my very first Letterboxd logs. It's a return to my early cinephile days, before I made my first short, and a revisit to the masters that have influenced my works and shaped my perception of cinema. A valuable personal archive.

— Ngọc Duy Lê
Movie Original Title Director Country Year Duration
Un Chien Andalou Luis Buñuel France 1928 21’
Meshes of the Afternoon Alexander Hammid , Maya Deren USA 1946 14’
Mirror of Holland Spiegel van Holland Bert Haanstra The Netherlands 1950 9’
Islands of Fire Isole di fuoco Vittorio De Seta Italy 1955 11’
Water-Mirror of Granada Aguaespejo granadino Vittorio De Seta Spain 1955 11’
Nuit et brouillard Night and Fog Alain Resnais France 1955 32’
La Jetée Chris Marker France 1962 28’
The House Is Black Khaneh siah ast Forugh Farrokzhad Iran 1963 22’
Tale of Tales Сказка сказок Yuri Norstein Soviet Union 1979 29’
A Few Stories About a Man Kilka opowieści o człowieku Bogdan Dziworski Poland 1983 20’