The film that won the Audience Choice Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival, a documentary about former orphans airlifted out of Vietnam at the end of the war, is coming to a film festival near you.
After the success at ViFF and at several other festivals including the director’s home town of Dallas, the film “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” is coming to the San Diego Asian Film Festival. (Click here for tickets.) Director Tammy Nguyen Lee will be in attendance at the screening at 2:00 pm on Saturday October 24.
The director (pictured right) is a graduate of SMU’s Meadows School with a B.A. with honors in Cinema, and also a Bruin, having graduated from UCLA’s Producers Program with an MFA. She is also, get this, a former Miss Asian American Texas 1999-2000.
In a recent interview with the Bolsavik, Tammy Nguyen Lee says of audiences’ reactions, “People, many who weren’t even aware of this historic event, are inspired by the courage of the Babylift volunteers and moved by the struggle of the adoptees. No matter the age, no matter the race, this is a relatable story that has universal themes and is touching lives and hearts everywhere.”
(The interview will be published on Nguoi Viet. You just got a preview ahead of everyone else. Lucky you.)
The film Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam features many compelling interviews with not just former adoptees and their families, but also American volunteers who had worked in orphanages in Saigon during the war and who were involved in the airlift.
Operation Babylift was an initiative approved by President Gerald Ford to retrieve 2,500 Vietnamese orphans during the last days of the war and bring them to safety in the U.S. Even with the best of intentions, however, the orphans, all of whom found adopting families, grew up facing unique challenges.
The movie follows a number of these former orphans who are now grown men and women in their thirties, and explore their issues including prejudice and identity crisis.
Other upcoming festival showings:
* Vancouver Asian Film Festival (1:30 pm, Sun Nov 8th)
* St. Louis International Film Festival (5:00 pm, Sat Nov 21st)
Next year, on the 35th anniversary of the end of the war and of Operation Babylift, the film will be shown at numerous events throughout the country. Click here for updated information on future screenings.
Tammy Nguyen Lee…..hubba bubba.
(Her colored contacts are definitely a nice touch.)
Tammy Nguyen Lee…….WOW!!
A young, respectful woman and her big heart, I hope she will continue on her film career and set standard for younger generation to follow…And yes, she is very beautiful which will help her to set foot in the door and get many more opportunities…
About the Viet Nam war, folks keep saying, it is the past, let it go, just think about the future for Viet Nam. Is the a future for Viet Nam?
See, it’s all a matter of perspective. It’s all how one see it in one’s perception and it is really a matter of context and spin from the media and how it creeps into our subconscious mind, it will be here for a long time…Deal with it!
History is a lesson for our future.
Cool..I’ll check out the Vancouver screening!
She’s HOT!