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January 27, 2007

Finally a film about Vietnamese boat people!

Tran's Journey From The Fall to be released soon

By Tram

I've always found it frustrating that the people of South Vietnam remain relegated to the background in Vietnam War films. The American soldiers are always front and center. Ironically, the people at the center of the turmoil are complacently depicted as "the Other" - as alien as the battleground enemies (the North Vietnamese Viet Cong) themselves.

With that being said, it's not all that surprising. Film mirrors culture and vice versa, and in the vacuum that is Americana, the voices of people like my mom and dad stay muted.

Stories of how they fled from Communism, post-Fall of Saigon, and emigrated to America, via diminutive, claustrophobic boats, only circulate within the confines of first generation Vietnamese American households like mines. Their stories, alas, are nowhere to be found in pages of history textbooks written mostly by the privileged and elite white few.

You can only imagine how thrilled I was when I recently found out that a film called Journey From The Fall was inspired by true life stories of boat people like my parents!

Directed by Ham Tran, a Vietnamese-born U.S. citizen, Journey From The Fall tells the story of a man's long, desperate quest to be reunited with the rest of his family, whom had embarked on the journey to America right after the Fall of Saigon, 1975. It captures, amongst other things, his tumultuous time as the Communist North took over the South - including imprisonment at the hands of the new government. (On an autobiographical sidenote, my dad was imprisoned temporarily by the Communist officials for protesting.)

Tran's film, which was presented at last year's Sundance Film Festival, recently premiered at the Northwest Asian American Film Festival (January 25th) in Seattle.

It will receive a limited release in New York and San Jose, CA, starting March 23, 2007. More cities will be added in the following weeks.

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