Yesterday, I went to the San Jose special screening and press conference of Ham Tram's "Journey from the Fall" ("Vuot Song"), which tells the story of one family's journey to the United States right after the fall of Saigon on April 30th 1975. Often compared as the "Schindler's List" for the Vietnamese diaspora, this much-anticipated movie has been long overdue. All three private screenings in Washington, DC, Orange County and San Jose has been sold-out weeks before.
Boy, this is an heart-wrenching movie. I can't remember crying so much in a movie--gez, I think I've cried non-stop in this movie. Being a boat person myself who left Vietnam on a small boat with my sister and my parents and surviving the escape on our second attempt, I am truly touched by this movie. Even though my parents have told me the story of our escape many times, I am still shocked and touched when I saw this movie, that many of my colleagues, who actually went through reeducation camp, say is not exaggerated a single bit.
Actress Kieu Chinh, me and director Ham Tram at VANG
I've met Ham Tram at Vietnamese American National Gala in Washington, DC last week and asked him how come the movie has such a limited screening, given the high demand, and he explained to me that he is currently seeking a distributor for the movie. During the press conference yesterday, he mentioned that the Vietnamese community can help by calling the decision-makers at each movie theater and asking when and where we can see this movie. Let's face it, there is a demand for this movie and it's a story that needs to be told to the American mainstream. I will post more info on how you can help soon.
Ham Tram also gave me the 7-minute featurette and his permission to put it online (51 MB):
http://www.enderminh.com/jftf/journey_from_the_fall_featurette.wmv
Please forward this link to your friends. 9 out of 10 Vietnamese people either are boat persons themselves or have family members who went through the experience. Many didn't survive the escape (like my two cousins who we never heard of), yet many Americans never heard of this story.
On another tangent, there is another boat people film coming up called Bolinao 52. In a single sentence, Bolinao 52 tells the story of a boat people ship with some 100 Vietnamese boat people that was stranded in the ocean after a US navy ship refused to rescue them, forcing the boat people to starve to death, even though they started eating human flesh from the dead, leaving only 52 survivors which end up in the Philippines island called Bolinao. I've invited director Duc Nguyen to talk about this documentary at last year's VPS North American Conference. He is still working on it and hopefully will be out soon.