The documentary film about the horrific experience of 110 boat people left stranded at sea, leaving only 52 survivors, has been nominated for a regional Emmy award.
The film “Bolinao 52,” directed by Duc Nguyen, is nominated in two categories, Documentary, and Music Composition/Arrangement, for the regional Emmy award – given for outstanding achievement in television by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Unlike the Oscars, however, there are national Emmys and there are regional Emmys. Bolinao 52 has been nominated for awards in the so-called Northern California region, which covers everything from Visalia in the San Joaquin Valley all the way up to the Oregon border, and actually includes also the entire State of Hawaii and the TV market of Reno, Nevada. See complete list of nominees here.
On related news, PBS has chosen Bolinao 52 to be broadcast nationally. Not all stations show the film at the same time, though. The director has the various airdates on his Blogspot here.
For Southern California, the film will be aired on KCET at 2PM next Sunday May 10.
It’s not surprising that the film’s music is nominated for the Emmy. The principal performer, Van-Anh Vo (Võ Vân Ánh) is one of the top traditional musicians of Vietnam. A video of the recording session appears at the end of this entry.
The name of the film is the name given to the boat that landed in the island of Bolinao in the Phillipines. The boat had left Vietnam with 110 people, but was stranded for 37 days, forcing people to resort to cannibalism to survive. Only 52 people made it.
The film chronicles the horrors that one woman lived through, and witnesses her return to the island town of Bolinao to seek peace and honor the dead. The film also briefly examines the controversy over the decision to court-martial the captain of the U.S. war ship that gave the refugees food, water and directions, but did not pick them up.
