Legacies of War: Vietnam Across the Divides
2 Episodes
On the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, filmmaker and program curator Tony Bui presents a multiperspective look at the Vietnam War on film, moving beyond conventional narratives to include voices and viewpoints often overlooked in mainstream cinema. While the most famous Vietnam War films—like the cultural touchstones PLATOON and FULL METAL JACKET—focus on the experience of American soldiers, this selection paints a broader, more complex picture, exploring Vietnamese perspectives, the war’s impact on civilians, and postwar reckoning. Encompassing powerfully human Vietnamese dramas like THE LITTLE GIRL OF HANOI and WHEN THE TENTH MONTH COMES, wrenching documentaries like REGRET TO INFORM and HEARTS AND MINDS, and Bui’s own poetic reflection on Vietnam past and present, THREE SEASONS, these stories of loss, resilience, trauma, and reconciliation offer new ways of understanding a conflict that shattered and shaped countless lives.
Presented in cooperation with the Viet Nam Film Institute. Special thanks to the Permanent Mission of Viet Nam to the United Nations in New York.
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1:12:23Episode 1
Regret to Inform
Episode 1
Directed by Barbara Sonneborn • 1998 • United States
In this powerful and poetic documentary, the legacy of the Vietnam War is explored from a perspective rarely acknowledged: that of the survivors whose lives continue to be impacted by the loss of their loved ones. Twenty years after her husban...
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1:51:58Episode 2
Hearts and Minds
Episode 2
Directed by Peter Davis • 1974 • United States
A startling and courageous film, Peter Davis’s landmark 1974 documentary HEARTS AND MINDS unflinchingly confronted the United States’ involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it. Using a wealth of sources—from intervie...