Quang is a gay film director living in Hanoi, keeping his distance from his family: his conservative mother Cuc, who wants a traditional family, and his older sister Mai, who is neurodivergent. Their uneasy relationship begins to crumble with Mai unexpectedly becomes pregnant. Through diary entries, photographs, recordings of phone calls, and footage of the present, Quang brings out the wounds and resentments the three have kept buried. Like the title, which places side by side ‘Baby Jackfruit,’ Mai’s childhood nickname, and ‘Baby Guava,’ the nickname for the baby to come, the film looks back at the family’s past and explores the cycle of motherhood and the possibility of reconciliation between generations. The story of a wounded family unfolds as a compelling drama that never loses the honesty and warm humor of a personal documentary.
Programme note by JO Jihoon
Stills5
Screenings3
Fri, 10/09
09:4011:23
LOTTE CINEMA Centum City 2
216KE, Korean subtitles + English subtitles or English dialogue
Sat, 10/10
12:4014:48
CGV Centum City 2
293Guest Q&AKE, Korean subtitles + English subtitles or English dialogue
Sun, 10/11
19:0021:08
LOTTE CINEMA Centum City 5
434Guest Q&AKE, Korean subtitles + English subtitles or English dialogue
Film details
Director
NONG Nhat Quang
Original title
Em bé đồng bóng, em bé ngạo nghễ và em bé đau lòng
Nong Nhat Quang is a Hanoi-based Vietnamese documentary director. He has directed short films focusing on the lives, relationships, and memories of the Vietnamese queer community, including Our Queer History (2019), An Invisible Marriage (2024), and Kinktimacy (2024). Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava is his feature directorial debut, which has been screened at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and the Sydney Film Festival, and won the Special Jury Prize in the Burning Lights competition at the Visions du Réel.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
