Nguyễn Trinh Thi reflects on the image-focused nature of modern media at the expense of the listening culture in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in How to Improve the World. Nguyễn is a Hanoi-based filmmaker and artist whose work blends documentary and performance to explore memory, landscape, and hidden histories. Nguyễn has stated: “As our globalised and westernised cultures have come to be dominated by visual media, I feel the need and responsibility as a filmmaker to resist this narrative power of the visual imagery, and look for a more balanced and sensitive approach in perceiving the world by paying more attention to aural landscapes, in line with my interests in the unknown, the invisible, the inaccessible, and in potentialities.”

Through her deeply observant lens, this film prioritizes the spoken word, traditional music, and ambient sounds of the region, particularly focusing on the Jarai people and their rich oral traditions, including interviews with community members that capture their daily lives. The film stimulates its viewers to think about how they perceive and absorb the world around them. What might be lost when sight overshadows sound in our perception of reality?

How to Improve the World is part of a larger block on Nguyễn’s work on the erasure of minority cultures in Vietnam.