Oh, Saigon

Oh, Saigon. The last Vietnamese family airlifted out of Saigon on the last day of the Vietnam War attempts to resolve its divided past. A father reunites with the brother he fought against decades after the conflict that split them. A mother in impossible circumstances is forced to choose between her daughter and her husband. Meanwhile, two first-generation Vietnamese-American sisters try to reconcile a difficult past that altered the course of their lives. While one was airlifted out of Saigon at the end of the war, the other was tragically left behind and suffered through imprisonment and kidnapping.

In 2000, as a young Vietnamese-American woman, Doan Hoang began filming interviews with her family in America, and kept the camera rolling as they journeyed back to Vietnam. Hoang had been on that last civilian helicopter out of Saigon at the age of 3. In seeking to uncover the mysterious circumstances of her family's schism, Hoang has compiled a documentary account that reveals the humanity of those who were soldiers, wives, children, prisoners, revolutionaries and refugees. The war's deep and lasting ramifications divided this family and many others between two worlds: the cold, "free" and affluent United States, and the colorful, 'Communist' and poverty-stricken Vietnam. Their lives demonstrate the consequences of split-second choices, and how a war lives on inside people long after the fighting stops. Yet, we also see indomitable will and spirit of humans and their ability to face adversity, to recover and to change.

Trailer

Credits

Director/Producer/Writer: Ðoan Hoàng
Executive Producers: John Battsek, Julie Goldman, Dan Giddings
Cinematographers: Ham Tran, Lara Frankena, Timothy Furnish
Editor:/Co-Writer: Bret Sigler
Composers: Juan P. Buccella, Malcolm Cross
Total Running Time: 58 min.
Website: www.ohsaigon.com

About The Filmmaker

DOAN HOÀNG is an award-winning producer, director and writer of films, heading her own production company, Nuoc Pictures. She was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, to a South Vietnamese Air Force major from Saigon and a Mekong Delta socialite. Raised in Kentucky, Hoàng wrote her first book about the Vietnam War at age 9 and made her first documentary film about war at the age of 12. A graduate of Smith College, Hoàng spent years as an editor and writer, working for national magazines such as Details, House & Garden, Spin and Saveur. Oh, Saigon was a seven-year project, funded by the Sundance Institute, ITVS, the Center for Asian American Media and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The film has been screened in major cities in 10 countries, subtitled in five languages, and has had over 150 air dates on American Public Television. Some of her other film titles include Agent, Good Morning Captains and A Requiem for Vegetables. Hoàng She is currently making American Geisha, an animated documentary about her aunt, a former boat person who finds herself at the end of her long career as a high-class call girl in San Francisco.

Awards

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival: Grand Jury Prize
Brooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival: Best Film and Best Feature Documentary