Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and Photos
Vaan Nguyen was born in Israel to parents who fled Vietnam in 1975, became boat people and found asylum in Israel.
Today Vaan is a fixture among Tel Aviv’s young, beautiful and fashionable. She sounds and feels totally Israeli. She thinks in Hebrew, but she is also very aware of the painful absurdities of being a Vietnamese Israeli in the Jewish state. Israel is her home and her nation, but because of her appearance and family origins she cannot help but feel something of an outsider.
Israeli director Duki Dror has made a documentary film that follows Vaan, together with her father, on a journey back to Vietnam. Here is how one Israeli reviewer describes the film:
“The Journey of Vaan Nguyen” describes a crucial period in the life of the Nguyen family. Hoimai Nguyen and his wife escaped Vietnam in a refugee boat and arrived at the Israeli shores, where he and other refugees were granted asylum. Hoimai’s seven children were born in Israel. Two died at birth. Five girls were raised in an Israeli surrounding and developed a complex and split identity.
The film starts at the time when Hoimai decides it’s time to go back home to Vietnam. The longing, the constant feeling of foreignness and the need to go back home, carries him to the muddy roads of his home village. He sets out to get back the family lands which were confiscated at the time of communist regime. At the same time, his daughters are starting to question their own identities. They each have to test their sense of belonging.
Reviewers have been unanimous in praising “The Journey of Vaan Nguyen” as powerful, moving and unsentimental. An edited for television version will be broadcast in Israel on Wednesday, February 15, on Channel 1 at 10.00 p.m.
More information about the film, including how to purchase it, is available here.
Here’s the trailer:
[ACT]http://onejerusalem.com/wp-content/duki_dror_trailer.wmv,340,260[/ACT]
One Comment
This subject is realy touchy and sad,and
I can imagine how the family feels,so many
miles away from their village, and so many
years past,no matter what happens,one always
has his heart and longing to his/hers real
home.
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