Los Mentos
What: Short Film
When: 2020
Where: Vietnam
Role: Co-Director / Actor / Post-Production Director
What I Did: An absurd short film during Vietnam’s hardest covid lockdown
With: Thibaut Rabier
When: 2020
Where: Vietnam
Role: Co-Director / Actor / Post-Production Director
What I Did: An absurd short film during Vietnam’s hardest covid lockdown
With: Thibaut Rabier
Infections were rising in Hanoi, and we felt like something bad was going to happen. So far, Vietnam was managing pretty well its pandemic, even though they had some small waves here and there, it was mostly controlled.
Thing is, you can’t control it forever, and this time we were lucky to forsaw it. We took a flight to Da Nang, and after a long conversation with a police checkpoint, we were able to enter Hoi An. The day after, they closed all borders, the whole country prepared for the harshest lockdown in 1 year and a half of pandemics.
Lucky enough, we still had to go through a 3 week lockdown, but this time the scenario was idillic. Hoi An is the most beautiful town in Vietnam: a traditional fishing village, with beautiful yellow french architecture houses and buddhist pagodas, built between the sea and countless rivers. Some neighborhoods still stand in the middle of the rice paddies, which makes the whole picture even more poetic. We’ve been there once before, but couldn’t see the true beauty of it because of all the huge groups of korean tourists packing the small downtown streets. This time, we had this magnificent town the way it used to be: peaceful.
After the second week of lockdown, things started reopening and we were able to leave the Calm House - a 3 storey homestay held by Hà and Lee, another strike of luck because they are the most amazing people we could ever ask to live with during a lockdown. It would take another 4 months though for transports to reopen between Vietnam’s big cities. Which wasn’t a problem at all.
The homestay had 18 rooms but the only guests were me , Thibaut and a really weird girl from Ukraine, Lisa. The whole scenario, once again, was bizarre and fun at the same time. During those weeks amongst the 5 of us, I had amazing fresh fish barbecue and homemade pizza, cooked by Hà and Lee, tried vaping THC for the first time (provided by Lisa) and loved the vibe as I observed shooting stars from my balcony, started playing again my teenage years favorite RPG, Ragnarok, late at night and filmed Los Mentos.
But before I start talking about the short film, let me say this: I never felt so good as I did during those months in Hoi An. The whole stay felt like a dream. Responsibilities were on hold, we were just enjoying peace, nature and good people, in an empty paradise.
It’s rated +18 because of Thibaut’s mighty ass
The cherry on top: we had this random guy from Jamaica on Fiverr make us a promo video
