Panel Discussions at ViFF 2009

Rebuilding the Community Post-Katrina

Moderated by Linda Vo, Ph.D.

Panelists: S. Leo Chiang (Producer and Director), Loan Dao (Ph.D. candidate of Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley), Mai Dang (Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation), T. Linh Ho, John Nguyen (Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans - VAYLA-NO), Tony Nguyen (VAYLA-NO)

SATURDAY, April 11th  4:15pm-5:45pm

Humanities Instructional Building (HIB) 100, UC Irvine

Hurricane Katrina devastated Versailles, a thriving Vietnamese American community in New Orleans East. However, having been refugees before, Vietnamese American residents quickly returned post-Katrina and painstakingly rebuilt their neighborhood and their community. However, without consulting community members, the local government began building a toxic landfill just two miles away from Versailles. The community worked together to create effective alliances, especially by bringing together first, 1.5, and second generation Vietnamese Americans and their allies, to fight against environment racism and save their community. Representatives from groups that organized this coalition of resistance as well as those involved with making the documentary, A Village Called Versailles, which depicts their inspiring and moving story, are part of the panel. We can all learn crucial lessons from their experiences about how to overcome internal differences and strategically work together to improve Vietnamese American communities.

Reel to Real: International Networks

Bilingual (English and Vietnamese) Moderated by Ysa Le and Ky-Phong Tran

Panelists to be announced.

SUNDAY, April 12th  3:00pm-5:00pm

Humanities Instructional Building (HIB) 135, UC Irvine

Since 2002, when the cinema policy in Vietnam allowed for the establishment of private companies to produce films in the country, there has been a boom of “indie” films produced and released in Vietnam by diasporic filmmakers. Consequently international collaborations have formed to share the financial burdens of making films as well as to secure a larger transnational audience base. However, filmmakers continue to struggle due to the lack of an infrastructure to support independent filmmaking in Vietnam as well as in overseas communities. Creative strategies for public relations, such as the internet (on blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo!360, etc.), have been used by filmmakers to mobilize an audience for their films, network with others, and provide a means for grassroots advertising. Yet, internet use is still limited; as a result, venues such as these and distribution channels are major challenges in both Vietnam and the diaspora. The goal of the panel discussion is to provide the panelists and the audience opportunities to explore the ways one can create a larger international audience base via different methods of networking.

Click here to view topics of past discussions.