Cineuropa sat down with Polish director Weronika Mliczewska, whose first full-length documentary, Child of Dust [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
interview : Weronika Mliczewska
fiche film], has achieved a rare feat, winning both the International Documentary Film Competition and the National Competition (tied with Wojciech Staroń’s The Passion of Agnieszka) at the Krakow Film Festival (25 May-1 June). Her film, which also scooped a Special Mention during the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, was shot in Vietnam and the USA, and tells the story of Sang, whose father was a US soldier during the Vietnam War and whose mother was Vietnamese. Mliczewska shares how she met her protagonist and how she made him a co-creator of the film.

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Cineuropa: In every culture, parents are very important, but it seems that in Vietnam, the father figure is way more influential than in many others. Can you explain why?
Weronika Mliczewska: For every Vietnamese person, your father is the guardian of your identity. There is an old Vietnamese saying: “A child without a father is like a house without a roof.” Sang told me that if it weren’t for the dream of finding his father, he would have committed suicide. He had such a difficult life as a street kid – he was discriminated against and beaten up because of his roots, for having a father who was “the enemy”. When Sang was leaving behind his family life built in Vietnam for this idealised father figure in the USA, I understood that this journey was not only about meeting his biological parent; his quest was a search for identity, for himself, and without it, he simply couldn’t carry on.

When did you learn that there was a sizeable group of Amerasians whose fathers were US soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War? And how did you pick Sang from among them?
I was based in Vietnam for a while, making a short film. That’s how I met my co-producer, Chi-Minh De Leo, who was on board this project from day one, always believing in it when nobody else did. This is when I got to know about Amerasians and a group of people who, even though DNA tests are illegal in Vietnam, are still carrying them out. They’re risking their own freedom. One of them is Hung, who is in the film and who was helping Sang, and there was also Brian, who's in Denmark. Since 1992, he has been searching for these fathers in his free time. They told me about several cases where they found a father, but Sang was the only one who sparked something in my heart. When I met him, I knew he could be the character of a feature-length film. I knew that the journey with him would take us somewhere deep and universal.

It was a bold move to film only one person out of the hundreds of thousands who exist. I didn't know where it would lead us, but I trusted in the process and knew that, with Sang, no matter whether or not he went to America, it would be a journey with a lot of twists, turns and life-changing decisions that would make us question what identity really is, what the state of belonging really is in these times plagued by the modern-day immigration crisis, what the meaning of fatherhood is, and how Sang would define fatherhood for himself.

I know about the long-term consequences of the war and how it resonates in the life stories of regular people. For me, it was timeless and current, and it was something that I felt would resonate not only in Vietnam or the USA, but hopefully across different cultures as well. We gathered so many co-producers on this project – we had co-production partners in Vietnam, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Poland – and this alone shows how broad and universal the topic can be.

How did you talk to Sang, who does not speak English, about such delicate matters?
I had to be honest and humble, and admit that I would never be able to understand the culture like the Vietnamese do. From day one, I made it clear that I wanted to co-create this film with them. So, the Vietnamese crew were key. I had an AD who translated everything for me both linguistically and culturally. I also always knew that I wanted to tell this story through Sang’s eyes. It was a unique perspective because there are a lot of films about Amerasians and the Vietnam War, or the long-term repercussions of it on US society. But I’d never come across a story told from the perspective of an Amerasian.

Sang really trusted us, and he wanted to get his voice out there. I was very transparent about how we were going to tell this story. I was sharing things with him for years. I showed him certain scenes that we’d started editing in the process. So, he saw some teasers and trailers, and he was almost in control of it, in a way.