Searching

 I am in the last hours of deciding whether or not to submit a film this year.  It has been difficult following through with interviews due to the Corona virus.  So I sit at night hoping for a late night inspiration.  So im sitting here Sat. morning minutes before my class and Im watching Looney Toons.  And I am trying to figure out how to make a short film in one week using the story telling of cartoons.  Buggs is my hero.

Two weeks later:

But sometimes things fall into place.  I work with a lot of folks of Vietnamese Heritage.  If you take the time to talk to them, almost all have a story of escaping Vietnam.  Stories you hear about, but then actually meet the people who experienced the horrors and desperation to escape, then the tortuous journey of assimilation into a completely foreign culture and language.  

They are similar to the JA in that their present lives, their children are living the American life oblivious to what their parents experienced.  Glimpses occur when dealing with grandparents, family still in Vietnam.  My parents did not talk much about the Incarceration Camps and definitely not about their re assimilation back into American Society.  The similarity ends there.  

As President Biden pulled the American Troops out of Afghanistan, photos appeared in the newspapers that suddenly shocked me into remembrances of the fall of South Vietnam.  The iconic photo of a helicopter on top of a building and lines of people trying to get aboard.  If it jarred my memory, how did it affect those who actually experienced it and seeing it again 45 years later.

I took a chance and called a friend from work remembering the stories he told me years ago of his journey out of Vietnam.  Those images did affect him.  It brought back, not just memories, but a need to express what happened.  He was waking up a night trying to figure out how to deal with this, then I called.

How do you convert 2.5 hrs of interview of heart wrenching stories of near misses, desperation, separation, death, suffering, perseverance into a short 10 minute film.  Im not sure, but we will find out in about three weeks.  I definitely feel I am way over my head.