‘Mam’ Director Nan Feix and Chef Jerald Head on the San Sebastián-Winning Film Born From Their NYC Vietnamese Restaurant, Now at SXSW, Clip Unveiled (Exclusive)

Nan Feix’s feature “Mam,” a documentary-inflected fiction set in New York’s Chinatown that stars the real owners of a celebrated Lower Manhattan Vietnamese restaurant, will screen at SXSW. Variety has an exclusive clip from the film.

The film centers on Jerald, a self-taught chef from small-town Texas whose passion for Vietnamese cuisine drives him to New York City with dreams of opening his own restaurant. Short on cash and time, he finds an unexpected partner in Nhung, a Vietnamese waitress, and the two scheme their way through street hustles and underground cooking operations in pursuit of his goal.

It’s a story grounded in genuine friendship and culinary obsession – values that extend well beyond the screenplay. The film stars Jerald Head and Nhung Dao Head, the American-Vietnamese couple behind Mam, the Vietnamese restaurant at Forsyth Street that inspired the project.

For Feix, the road to the film ran…