Ngô Phương Ly

Biography

In 2002 the Vietnam Cinema Association announced a competition for the design and concept of an annual film award. The emblem chosen was a paper kite proposed by Ngô Phương Ly. The award was named the Golden Kite (Cánh diều), and it was first presented in 2003.

At that time Ngô Phương Ly was working as a reporter on the channel VTV3 of Vietnam Television.

She was born in 1970 in Hanoi, reportedly in the village of Tả Thanh Oai in Thanh Trì district, now part of the capital. She was the third of four children of People's Artist of Vietnam Ngô Mạnh Lân, an animation director, and the actress Phan Thị Ngọc Lan. Her father encouraged the children from an early age to take up the arts. Her elder sister, Ngô Thị Phương Lan, became a film critic and headed the Vietnam Film Department, while her younger brother, Ngô Đức Lâm, teaches at the University of Industrial Fine Arts. Ngô Phương Ly herself studied art and design at the Hanoi University of Theatre and Cinema and was preparing to become a professional painter. In the end she gave up painting and came to Vietnam Television as a presenter, then became a reporter. At VTV3 she was among those who developed the talk show “Who Builds the Family” (Người xây tổ ấm). Later she became head of the culture and arts department in the arts programming division of Vietnam Television. Nothing is known about her exhibitions, so I would be wary of calling her a working painter: she is known above all as a television professional and the designer of the award's emblem.

Ngô Phương Ly is a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam. She is the second wife of Tô Lâm, who has been General Secretary of the party since 2024 and in the same period was president of the country; since 2024 she has been unofficially called the First Lady of Vietnam.