Surname Viêt Given Name Nam

The film builds a collage out of what Vietnamese women say. There are women in Vietnam and women in the United States; north and south are heard separately. Archive footage, folk songs, poetry, dance and printed texts are used side by side. The account circles questions of identity, common memory and culture. Displacement and exile are part of the subject as well. Trịnh T. Minh-hà also opens the method of documentary itself to argument. Her question is this: how much of the truth does an interview carry, and what does translation take away. The work objects to the idea that documentary shows the world as it is. The hundred and eight minutes are shared between those two lines. Trịnh T. Minh-hà’s documentary, a joint American and Vietnamese production, was completed in 1989.