ONNA BAKARI NO YORU (GIRLS OF THE DARK)

Kuniko lives at a correctional facility for prostitutes. A model inmate, she is released and given the chance to work at a grocery store. When a worker of the grocery reveals to the proprietor’s wife that Kuniko was a prostitute, the wife soon starts to daily discriminate and persecute Kuniko. Almost out of revenge against the wife, Kuniko finally gives in to her boss’ advances and then, leaving the store, resumes her life on the streets.Through the movie, Kuniko finds two more jobs thanks to two different partners of the correctional. The first one, as a prostitute in a ‘tools factory’. Her partners wanted to force her to sell herself again, and she quitted and soon found another job at a nursery. In this second one soon a gardener falls in love with her and proposes to her. The future husband goes to visit her mother and all Kuniko gets back is a letter from his mother saying his son would never marry a prostitute.

Tanaka Kinuyo is considered one of the most promising young talents in the Vietnamese film industry of the last 10 years. In 2013 he made his first short film 16:30 which won several awards and participated in the Cannes Film Festival. With Rom, which is her first feature film, Tran Than Huy tries to represent the dynamics of lottery gambling, which, despite being illegal in Vietnam, are quite popular among middle-class families like the director himself, who in order to move up socially can gamble with their house, family and even their lives.