Summer School, 2001

In the summer of 2001, seventeen-year-old Kein—known for his bright red hair—returns to his family at the market in Cheb after ten years in Vietnam. The market is a popular shopping destination for Germans, offering everything from cheap jeans to heaps of fake designer goods. But instead of a warm welcome, Kein is met by a distant father, a mother desperately trying to mend the past, and a younger brother unwilling to share either the role of “the son” or his parents’ attention. Between ironing Pokémon onto T-shirts, cramming Czech grammar, and flirting by the lake, a long-kept secret finally comes to light—turning the life of the Vietnamese community in the town upside down…

With buoyant lightness and a wink of humor, Dužan Duong tells a story of everyday life, worries and struggles—as well as plenty of parties—within a Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic. And of how understanding sometimes begins by making cracks and divides visible and taking a very, very close look at them. A stunningly lucid debut film!