Support Nhan Tran

Nhan Tran (Nhàn) is a Vietnamese documentary photographer and filmmaker based between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. She is of the Kinh ethnicity, a majority within Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups. Her work focuses on long-term stories, drawing attention to social issues, and advocating for equitable and sustainable development in her country. Nhan focuses on minority groups, exploring women's subjectivity as they navigate life’s uncertain terrains. 

 

While studying at the Foreign Trade University in Ho Chi Minh City, she worked as a freelance photographer, covering both documentary and commercial projects. Feeling the limits of storytelling through photography alone, she joined a three-month filmmaking workshop organized by Varan Vietnam - a collective of independent documentary filmmakers specializing in the Direct Cinema genre. Her first documentary, Downstream the River (2020, 17 min, Vietnam/France), produced during the workshop, was screened at Cinéma du Réel.

 

She is a member of Women Photograph, a nonprofit that elevates the voices of women and nonbinary visual journalists. She is a member of Up Next Photographers, which is part of Diversify Photo - a community of BIPOC and non-Western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break the colonial and patriarchal eye through which the images of our time have been recorded. Nhan’s photographs of a young Vietnamese woman who was lured to work in a Cambodian scam factory was published in a May 2025 feature article of the British newspaper, The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/scamming-compound-romance-crypto-fraud-cambodia-nhc52nlq3.

Nhan has extended her photographic practice (https://www.nhantran.org/) by gaining experience as an assistant director.