Skin of Youth
New York Asian Film Festival 2025
July 11 - 24, 2025
Two young LGBTQ+ lovers in 1990s Saigon get entangled in the criminal underground and must do battle with dark forces that threaten their relationship and test the limits of their humanity. Preceded by Catherine T. Nguyen’s Colors of the Sky’s End.
Ash Mayfair follows up her heralded debut, The Third Wife, with a luminously gritty love story set in 1990s Saigon. It follows the journeys of San (Tran Quan, in a star-making debut), who is saving up for the surgery that will affirm her identity, and her devoted lover Nam, a cage fighter who scrambles to help fund her transition. Their tender relationship is pushed to the brink when they become entangled in a dangerous underworld ruled by a mysterious, manipulative oligarch who becomes entranced with San during performances at his nightclub. A nuanced exploration of LGBTQ+ life and personal and political freedoms, the film is both raw and vibrant, opulent and dreamy, with color-saturated settings, sensuous camerawork, and emotionally charged performances.
Preceded by:
Colors of the Sky’s End
Catherine T. Nguyen, 2025, Vietnam, 15m
Vietnamese with English subtitles
World Premiere
A Vietnamese-American photographer seeking inspiration in Sa Dec, Vietnam, discovers an abandoned baby, sparking a controversial creative journey that threatens her relationship and tests her moral and creative boundaries as she prepares for her next exhibition.
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