{"id":656263,"date":"2026-11-10T03:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T03:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/656263\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T03:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T03:58:10","slug":"summer-school-2001-first-czech-viet-film-set-for-us-cinemas-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/656263\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer School, 2001, First Czech-Viet Film, Set for US Cinemas, Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn 2025, Summer School, 2001, the debut feature of writer-director Du\u017ean Duong<\/a> and dubbed the \u201cfirst Czech-Vietnamese feature film,\u201d made a splash at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival<\/a> and beyond. Now, it is coming to America, courtesy of Reel Citrus, an L.A.-based distributor of Asian and diaspora films.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company will open Summer School, 2001 in a limited U.S. theatrical release on Dec. 11 at Cinemark cinemas, hitting screens before Dune 3<\/a> and Avengers: Doomsday opens a week later. The film will then stream on Amazon from Dec. 18 before rolling out globally.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt a time when immigration and belonging are front-page news in both the U.S. and Europe, the release brings two diasporas into the same theater,\u201d said Reel Citrus.<\/p>\n

\n\tSummer School, 2001 follows 17-year-old Kien, who returns to his family\u2019s market stall in Cheb, a small town on the Czech border, after spending 10 years in Vietnam. It becomes a chaotic summer, during which the family must try to become whole again. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter its Karlovy Vary world premiere, the movie drew more than 20,000 moviegoers during its run in Czech cinemas. At the Czech Lion Awards, the Czech national film honors, Summer School, 2001 won the best screenplay award for Duong, Jan Smutn\u00fd and Luk\u00e1\u0161 Koke\u0161, along with the best supporting actor honor for D\u0169ng Nguy\u1ec5n, the first Vietnamese actor to win a Czech Lion. The Czech Film Critics\u2019 Awards named it the best screenplay and the Discovery of the Year.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Summer School, 2001\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of KVIFF<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Viet Film Fest, the largest U.S. festival for the Vietnamese diaspora, the film won the Bronze Drum (Tr\u1ed1ng \u0110\u1ed3ng) Award for the best feature film, the best actor honor for T\u00f4 Ti\u1ebfn T\u00e0i and the Audience Choice Award for best feature.<\/p>\n

\n\tReel Citrus says it chose the theaters to target the communities that the film, which is in Vietnamese and Czech with English subtitles, speaks to. Most of the cinemas are in areas with large Vietnamese American populations, including Southern California, where it plays in Huntington Beach next to Little Saigon, the Bay Area, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Las Vegas and the Washington, D.C. area. The rest of the theaters are in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Central Texas, \u201chome to strong Czech, Polish and other Central and Eastern European communities,\u201d the company explains.<\/p>\n

\n\tVietnamese American families and Czech and Polish moviegoers came out in droves for a screening of Summer School, 2001 at the Avalon Theatre in Washington, D.C. last March. Co-presented with the Embassy of the Czech Republic, it served as an early test for Reel Citrus, which says it releases films \u201cin person, one community at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReel Citrus acquired North American rights across all media, along with worldwide streaming rights, to Summer School, 2001 from AZN kru. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSummer School, 2001 was an eye-opening film for us,\u201d said Brittany Tran, founder & managing director of Reel Citrus. \u201cMany of us grew up knowing the Vietnamese American story, but we knew far less about the Vietnamese families who built their lives in the Czech Republic and across Europe. Our diaspora is global, and when Vietnamese communities in the U.S. see the communities in Europe, we realize how much we share.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDu\u017ean Duong, courtesy of Karlovy Vary International<\/a> Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added: \u201cWe know we\u2019re opening the week before Dune and Avengers, so we\u2019re competing with the gods. But audiences who rarely see their own stories on the big screen are exactly who this release is for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Duong, who talked to THR<\/a> about his creative vision for Summer School, 2001 and his other creative work, shared: \u201cVietnamese families have been part of Czech life for decades, but our stories rarely reach the screen. I made this film for my community in Cheb and for every family that has had to find its way back to each other. Seeing it open in American theaters, in front of Vietnamese and Czech audiences together, means more than I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out a trailer for Summer School, 2001 here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, Summer School, 2001, the debut feature of writer-director Du\u017ean Duong and dubbed the \u201cfirst Czech-Vietnamese feature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[53006,156,1019,242053,242054,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-656263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dune-3","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-karlovy-vary-international-film-festival","tag-kviff","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}