The granddaughter of a Vietnamese hero explores the enduring legacy of the Vietnam Conflict on her household and nation.
The 50-minute documentary 50 Years of Forgetting explores the enduring impression of the Vietnam Conflict on the lives of latest Vietnamese. Prompted by a letter from an American veteran, filmmaker Mai Huyen Chi embarks on a private and nationwide investigation.
Chi’s quest begins by unravelling the story of her battle hero grandfather who fought for the successful North, a determine shrouded in household silence. As that quickly meets its dissatisfying finish, she embarks on a journey throughout Vietnam and meets individuals whose lives have been formed by a number of the most traumatic occasions of the battle: the Battle of Hue in 1968, the Christmas bombing in 1972 and the autumn of Saigon in 1975. Their experiences, full of each resilience and loss, power Chi to confront her circle of relatives’s buried truths. She discovers the story of her aunt married to a pilot on the dropping Southern aspect who fled, highlighting the battle’s fracturing impression on Vietnamese households throughout generations.
The exploration turns into deeply private. Chi confronts a harsh actuality: Her personal cousin suffers from the debilitating results of Agent Orange, a merciless consequence of the battle that continues to inflict ache on numerous Vietnamese. By weaving these various narratives collectively, 50 Years of Forgetting transcends the Vietnam Conflict to discover common themes of battle and its enduring legacies. Will previous classes be forgotten? Can Vietnam construct a collective reminiscence that honours the sacrifices of tens of millions of individuals when those that endured years of brutality in the course of the Vietnam Conflict try so onerous to neglect?
