Vietnamese Hit ‘Meet Me at the Eclipse’ Getting North American Release

Vietnamese romantic drama “Meet Me at the Eclipse” (Hẹn Em Ngày Nhật Thực) will open theatrically across North America on May 8, distributed worldwide by Mockingbird Pictures, following a dominant run at the Vietnamese local box office that has seen it clear $4 million and climb into the record books.

Directed by Lê Thiện Viễn and produced by Lý Minh Thắng under Cánh Đồng Film, the film opened in Vietnam on March 27 and has held the top spot on the national chart for three consecutive weeks. It now ranks as the second highest-grossing original screenplay romance in Vietnamese box office history, behind only “Mai,” the 2024 hit directed by Trấn Thành.

The film uses a 1995 solar eclipse as its central metaphor, tracing the journey of a woman who discovers a cache of unsent love letters and travels back to her rural hometown, where a reunion with her first love forces a reckoning with the past she never fully closed. The theatrical strategy for North America is being overseen by Thanh Tran of Mockingbird Pictures, with engagements confirmed at AMC, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark locations.

A day earlier, on May 7, the film will also open theatrically in Australia and New Zealand. Mockingbird is in advanced negotiations for releases in China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, with dates yet to be confirmed for those territories.

Phong Duong, business director of Mockingbird Pictures, noted: “Our ambition is to position Vietnamese and Southeast Asian cinema as a sustained presence on the global stage – not through isolated breakout titles, but by building a long-term ecosystem where local stories can travel, resonate, and thrive across international markets.”

Over the past decade, Mockingbird Pictures has built a substantial distribution operation in Vietnam, putting out more than 60 films in cinemas each year while maintaining a digital slate of over 100 titles annually across streaming platforms, among them Netflix. The company has increasingly extended that reach into international sales, with a growing focus on cross-border theatrical releases.