So I returned today to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival to see “Journey from the Fall” at the Palace of Fine Arts. This is my fourth time watching the movie (and I finally managed not to cry, haha). As noted so many times before, I think it’s one of the most touching and moving films about Vietnam I’ve ever seen. “Journey from the Fall” is such a groundbreaking movie that touches upon father-son, mother-son, mother-grandmother relationships, while telling the story of a family being separated after the Fall of Saigon, the boat people and reeducation-camp experience and the life of Vietnamese immigrants growing up in America.
This is a story that needs to be told to the American mainstream, as no other movie has ever touched upon these topics before. The movie is so well done: from cinematography, to the heartbreaking script, to the touching performances by Diem Liem and add to that Cristopher Wong’s tragic, but beautiful score, and you end up with an independent masterpiece that easily compares to Schindler’s List or Hotel Rwanda.
I still get tons of emails from random people asking about the release of this movie, so I'll repeat it again here: I am sorry, I don't have any information when the movie will be released to the theaters. Last that I heard, director Ham Tran is still looking for a distributor, and we would want this movie to be released on an national and international level, not only into the niche inside the Vietnamese community. No, I don't know about the DVD release yet, because frankly, the movie needs to come out into the theaters first! Read/listen to this interview I did a while back with Ham Tran to find out more about this. I should have more info to blog about, when I get to see him again this weekend at VASCON2 in Texas.