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RAI FILM Festival takes place on 27-30 March 2025. Learn more.

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Tigers Apprentice

Directed by M. Trinh Nguyen

1998 – 57'

Synopsis

Tiger’s Apprentice is the story of M. Trinh Nguyen’s journey to her native Vietnam. She observes and documents her great-uncle’s folk medicine practices treating many patients and making his medicines for tumours, leprosy, and infections. She also seeks out people cured by her great-uncle, talks to local doctors and herbalists, battle Vietnamese government censors fearful her footage might make them seem backward to the Western world, and ultimately realises that through her investigation she has unwittingly begun to apprentice.

RAI FILM Festival 2025

The next RAI FILM Festival will take place in person from 27-30 March 2025 at the Watershed Cinema and the Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts in Bristol (UK) and online throughout the month of April 2025.