In 19th century rural Vietnam, 14-year-old May becomes the third wife of wealthy landowner Hung. Soon she learns that she can only gain status by asserting herself as a woman who can give birth to a male child. May's hope to change her status turns into a real and tantalizing possibility when she falls pregnant. Faced with forbidden love and its devastating consequences, May finally comes to an understanding of the brutal truth: the options available to her are few and far between.
Ash Mayfair has directed numerous plays and short films in the UK and the USA. She has worked at the National Theatre in London as an assistant director, and in off-Broadway productions as a director. Her short films The Silver Man, Sam, Heart of a Doll, Grasshopper, Lupo, Walking the Dead and No Exit have travelled to multiple international festivals. The screenplay for The Third Wife, her first feature, was a recipient of the Spike Lee Film Production Fund award in 2014 and part of the IFP Narrative Lab 2017 in New York.