Tony Nguyen's Enforcing the Silence Dares to Address Anti-Communist Violence in the Vietnamese Diaspora in San Francisco Bay Area

To listen to the podcast of this program, which is an Internet-only edition for the second part of the April 25, 2011 show because of a jazz program pre-empting the live show -- click
on: . The audio leads off with Tony Nguyen giving the background leading up to his making this film. Updated blog entry follows:

Youth advocate Lam Duong as he appeared on the only videotaped interview before he was slain

A bold new documentary dares to address something only whispered about in the Vietnamese diasporic communities in North America -- the existence, especially in the 1980s, of a violent group of thugs -- masquerading as "freedom fighters".



Enforcing the Silence director Tony Nguyen, himself having been a youth advocate in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, in resurrecting the shortened life of Vietnamese immigrant activist and journalist/editor Lam Trong Duong [in Vietnamese: Dương Trọng Lâm], pays tribute to those in the Vietnamese diasporic communities that were anti-war and progressive. Lam Doung founded the first Vietnamese youth center in America (Vietnamese Youth Development Center), and published a progressive Vietnamese-language newspaper, Cai Dinh Lang, that reprinted stories from Hanoi. That he supported Ho Chi Minh -- he was an early immigrant in 1971, prior to the fall of Saigon, and he attended Oberlin High on an American Field Service exchange and later stayed to attend Oberlin College -- may have led to his murder in 1981 at the young age of 27.

A youthful Lam Duong

I say "may" because that's what the director says, given that the murder case remains unsolved, much like the half-dozen or so other cases of Vietnamese journalists and activists who were murdered. (The director does mention the 1987 Orange County case of Garden Grove-based Vietnamese magazine publisher Tap Van Pham, but leaves out another OC murder, in 1984, of CSUF Physics Prof. Edward L. Cooperman, whose activism in scientific exchange with post-war Vietnam is believed to have caused his murder by a Vietnamese student he mentored). Two locals are interviewed: Former OC Register Little Saigon reporter Jeff Brody (he's now teaching journalism at CSUF) and OC Weekly investigative reporter Nick Schou.

The film focuses on interviews with activists (including Lam Duong's colleagues at the youth center), and law enforcement (SFPD and FBI), and raises the possibility that a key Reagan and later Bush administration figure may have been the link with National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam founder Hoang Hoang Co Minh, now deceased.

This powerful hour-long film is testimony to the best in documentary work, uncovering a hidden subject. That it did not get a screening at the just-concluded VIFF (Vietnamese International Film Festival) is a sad commentary on the fear that still pervades the Vietnamese diasporic communities. It is a fear that continues to intimidate some artists and film folks as well as some in the community at large. In rejecting the film, VIFF missed an opportunity to take a stand in support of artistic freedom while simultaneously continuing to enforce the very silence Tony Nguyen's film addresses.

In feedback on the Diacritics site after USC Prof. Viet Thanh Nguyen suggested interviews with anti-communist leaders might have "humanized" them, the director Tony Nguyen says he was not able to contact any Front officials. (Although the director passed through Southern California in making the film, he didn't manage to interview then-Front spokesman Do Diem, who once incidentally even sat on the advisory board of the Southeast Asian Archive at UC Irvine. -- See my piece in the OC Weekly on a Front spinoff. ADDED: See also my profile in OC Weekly of Do Diem: Guerrilla in the Midst)

Director Tony Nguyen has an appeal online to raise funds for distributing the film.

I talk with director Tony Nguyen about his courageous new documentary and how he will distribute it. UNFORTUNATELY THE SUBVERSITY SHOW TODAY IS PRE-EMPTED BY JAZZ so I'll post the interview online asap.

The film screens Saturday 30 April 2011 (5 p.m.) at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival at Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd (at Crescent Heights) West Hollywood, CA 90046. PARKING: Free for 3 hours with validation. See film schedule for more information: http://laapff.festpro.com/schedule/ -- Daniel C. Tsang

Singapore Woman Director Mun Chee Yong's Take on Surviving in Los Angeles

To listen to the podcast of this program, which is an Internet-only edition for the first part of the April 25, 2011 show because of a jazz program pre-empting the live show -- click
on: .

UPDATED 6 May 2011: Where the Road Meets the Sun has won two festival special jury awards: Gavin Kelly has won the festival's Special Jury Award, Narrative: Outstanding Cinematography. And the actors Eric Mabius, Fernando Noriega, Will Yun Lee and Luke Brandon Field have won the festival's Special Jury Award, Narrative: Best Ensemble Acting.

Takashi (Will Yun Lee) reflects on his memory loss in Where the Road Meets the Sun.

If ever there is a list of the top films that address the underside of Los Angeles, Mun Chee Yong's Where the Road Meets the Sun will surely be on that chart. A multicultural cast interact in various languages (mainly English) as they seek to survive on the rough streets of urbanized Los Angeles.

Not a documentary by any means, Mun Chee Yong's script casts four men whose lives intersect at a decrepit hotel as they live from day to day, job to job, interspersed with Guy's hetero liaisons mostly with sex workers.

Takashi, whose memory loss from a car accident enables him to experience a rebirth away from his gangster life back in Japan, is played by the dashingly convincing, Korean American actor Will Yun Lee who sometimes lapses into Japanese. He develops a friendship with Blake (Eric Mabius) the hotel manager. At the same hotel, Julio (Fernando Noriega), a Spanish-speaking undocumented worker from Mexico who works at an Indian restaurant, befriends fellow kitchen Brit packpacker/fellow worker Guy (Luke Brandon Field), who sports an authentic British accent. Blake struggles to make ends meet when both are unceremoniously fired from the restaurant (without collecting their pay)while Blake manages to hit his dad in England up for more dough.

It's a (male) buddy film with some of the hetero and tough guy jinks -- and one gets to see scenes of Silver Lake and other Los Angeles locales.

A Singapore/Indonesia/US co-production, the 93-minute film has just been released this year. The director is a LSE (London School of Economics) graduate in monetary economics, with an MFA degree in Film Production from USC.

UNFORTUNATELY THE SHOW IS PRE-EMPTED BY JAZZ so I'll post the interview online asap.
On KUCI Subversity program this evening, we talk in the first half-hour withdirector Mun Chee Yong about his latest film. A podcast will be posted later.

The film screens at Saturday night (10 p.m.) at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival at Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd (at Crescent Heights) West Hollywood, CA 90046. PARKING: Free for 3 hours with validation. See film schedule for more information: http://laapff.festpro.com/schedule/

VIFF Filmmakers' Panel Discussion: Expanding the Audience Base

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The 2011 Vietnamese International Film Festival ended its exciting two week run last night with a daring, sexually explicit film, "Bi, Don't Be Afraid" directed by Phan Dang Di. The film, set in a hot and steamy Hanoi summer won the festival's Grand Jury prize for Best Film. Viewers in the audience saw a version that was more sexually explicit than that released in Vietnam, with masturbation (female and male), frontal urination (by a male student) and various scenes of heterosexual intercourse.

For this evening's edition of Subversity, we can't bring you that film, but will instead offer audio of the 10 April 2011 Filmmakers' Panel Discussion on "Expanding the Audience Base" that took place at UC Irvine.

Panelists were: Anderson Le, director of programming at the Hawaii International Film Festival; Ann Le, with international division of Universal Pictures; Charlie Nguyen, director of The Rebel; Fool for Love; James Nguyen, director/writer, Birdemic: Shock and Terror; Jenni Trang Le, Assistant Director, Bi, Don't Be Afraid, and of Clash; Khoa Do, Director/Writer, Footy Legends, Mother Fish; Le Thanh Son, director/writer, Clash, and Nguyen Nu Nhu Khue, producer with HK Films in Vietnam.

The program airs this evening from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via http://kuci.org. Podcast to be posted later.

Filmmaker with Conscience Khoa Do; Hazards of Nail Salons

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Director Khoa Do embraced by a fan after his film screened at VIFF 2011. Photography &c Daniel C. Tsang 2011

He's a Viet Kieu filmmaker with conscience. Hailing from Australia, and emerging as one of the most exciting new filmmakers from the Vietnamese diaspora, Khoa Do presented "Mother Fish," his dramatic and creative take on the boat people's exodus to the West at the 5th Vietnamese International Film Festival ongoing at various venues in Southern California, including UC Irvine. As he discusses in the interview, he made this film to counter anti-refugee prejudice in Australia against a current wave of boat people from more current wars.

We talk with this award-winning director who charmed audiences at the last VIFF with his Footy Legends, about a multi-ethnic sports team, with a strong background in community service as a volunteer in a community-based organization in Sydney, where he made an earlier documentary, Finished People, about homeless people on the streets.

Khoa was named the 2011 VIFF Spotlight Award winner Saturday at a special event co-sponsored by Vietnamese American Community Ambassadors and the UCI Libraries Southeast Asian Archive prior to that evening's showing of Mother Fish.



The festival continues at UCLA, Bowers Museum (free to high school students) and UC Irvine. Among the films is "Touch," directed by Minh Duc Nguyen, a feature film about romantic liaisons among Vietnamese nail salon workers and their clients. It screens Saturday, 16 April 2011 at 7:30 p.m. HIB (Humanities Instructional Building) 100 on the UCI Campus.

For the second half of Subversity, we air Making Contact's report on the Toxic Truth about Nail Salons. It focuses on the health effects of prolonged chemical exposure on the salon workers and the move toward "greener" salons.

Also showing at VIFF is director Nguyen-Vo Nhiem Minh's second Vietnam production, Don't Look Back, a ghost story that is a takeoff on the Orpheus myth. Nguyen-Vo, who was last on Subversity discussing his "Buffalo Boy", is a scientist turned Vietnam filmmaker. Don't Look Back screens the same day, Saturday 16 April 2011 at 4 pm at HG (Humanities Gateway) 1070 on the UCI campus.

Subversity airs this evening from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.