Le Jour de l'éclipse
Alain Labouze
1996 - 39 min - Vidéo - Couleur - France

For a few days preceding the solar eclipse of 24th October 1995, Saïgon (officially Hô Chi minh Ville) hosts an international congress of physicians and astrophysicians and lives for astronomy. The producer goes to meet some research scientists of Vietnamese origin, emigrants because of the war and returned, by favour of the congress, to see how their country is in complete transformation.
An astrophysician questions Buddhist monks, and consults archives in the science library in Saïgon to try to understand the perception of eclipses in spiritual traditions and in the history of astronomy in South-East Asia.
But, in present-day Vietnam science is linked to the needs of the country's development : there is neither room nor equipment for astronomical research but on the other hand one can visit a modern chemistry laboratory.
The short version of the film (26 min.) does not include either the astrophysician "historian" sequences nor the chemical laboratory.