Filmmaker's Statement
A personal political film by a Vietnamese American (96 mins)
Executive Producer Christopher Hampton; Producer Stirling Silliphant; Music by Philip Glass
I never planned to spend 29 years making Why Viet Nam?. On my first trip back to my homeland in 1987, I used poetry to open hearts and doors. My poem “Dear America, Dear Viet Nam, New Dawn of Understanding” got me unprecedented access to one of the most feared and reclusive men in Hanoi: Vo Nguyen Giap, the “Red Napoleon.”
General Giap taught my dad history in Hanoi. He went on to defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and outmaneuvered the USA in an undeclared war that lasted 10,000 days. In our collective American memories, Viet Nam was a war and a “syndrome,” not a country. Hollywood films perpetuated this to generations of Vietnamese and Americans, whose psyches were still gripped by the war long after it ended.
We lost family, homes and our dignity after the Fall of Saigon, 41 years ago. I was naturalized as an American and terrorized by Hollywood films depicting my people as inscrutable villains with no regard for human life. Books on my county had titles like What Vietnam Did to Us. When was anyone was going to ask, “what did we do to Viet Nam?”
In Viet Nam, I was taken in by people from all walks of life. One was my father’s beloved teacher turned mortal enemy. A man I had to meet.
My conversations with General Vo Nguyen Giap over two and a half decades moved me to share what I learned. For over 30 years, I’ve used film -- from 16mm to every format invented – to call up forgotten stories to help me learn about the Other.
My affliction, my film obsession mixed with nostalgia, loss, trauma and tremendous survivor’s guilt led me to truly unforgettable encounters in the place of my birth.
With Ken Burns' 18 ½ hour documentary series "The Vietnam War" scheduled to air on PBS in September, interest in the Vietnam War is spiking amidst global uncertainty about peace and stability. I have the story as told by the other side, and a film to promote a dialogue between America and Viet Nam –nations poised to be key allies in the brewing South China Sea conflict.
Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant (Thanh Nga) Transparent Moon
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Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant
Filmmaker, performer, songwriter Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant (Thi Thanh Nga) emigrated to the USA with her family as a consequence of the Vietnam War. In the face of racial antipathy - she was told “it's all your fault our boys are dying in ‘Nam!” Tiana chased her childhood dream to act, dance, and kick ass. She became one of only two female students of Bruce Lee, who himself flew Tiana to Hollywood and introduced her future husband, Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant.
Tiana made her acting debut in Sam Peckinpah's “The Killer Elite”. Subsequent starring roles included “Catch the Heat” with Rod Steiger, and the celebrated ABC star studded mini-series “Pearl” about Pearl Harbor. She received a citation from the National Japanese American Historical Society for her portrayal as a Japanese American, was one of the first Asian Americans to join Screen Actors Guild & the first actress from Viet Nam to join AFTRA & SAG. She is a comped member for life of the Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Driven by the stories of 'Boat People' she visited at refugee camps, Tiana made her first humanitarian trip to Vietnam in the late '80s. She brought desperately needed medical supplies & gained first-hand knowledge of the embargo-wrecked nation's day-to-day realities. She met Mother Theresa in Hanoi who said: “God Bless you, my child, go work for the poorest of the poor.”
Tiana & her late husband Stirling Silliphant co-founded Indochina Film Arts Foundation w. Oliver Stone. She filmed in VN’s clinics & orphanages w/ Dr. Duong Quynh Hoa, VN’s former minister of Health.
In the early '90s, Tiana made her first film, the autobiographical documentary “From Hollywood to Hanoi”, which was awarded Best of Telluride at the Telluride Film Festival & nominated for "Best Non-Fiction Film" at Sundance International Festival. Her Exec Producer, Oscar winner Oliver Stone, raved about the personal account of her rediscovery of her homeland & quest for reconciliation between the USA VN on HBO.
Tiana launched VietnamTrilogy.com and her first film will be re-issued late this year.
The Indochina Film Arts Fdn, Intl stimulated artistic projects in film, theater, radio & education. Tiana has lectured & taught at Dartmouth College, presented her Viet Nam exhibitions from Bergamot Station in Los Angeles to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Having filmed the most extensive 30 yr archives of contemporary life in post war Vietnam, she's now on tour w. composer Philip Glass for “Why Viet Nam?”, 30 yrs in the making. A personal film about a rare friendship with her dad’s history teacher who made history, the Commander of the N. Vietnamese Army during both the French & American wars: Gen Võ Nguyên Giáp, Viet Nam’s most beloved hero.
Tiana was Associate Producer on David Cronenberg's film “A Dangerous Method:, with Kiera Knightley, Michael Fassbender & Viggo Mortensen, a project she initiated over sixteen years with her theatre & film partner Oscar winner Christopher Hampton, before it was turned it into a stage play called “The Talking Cure”. Their Appomattox Play & Opera bowed at the Kennedy Centre. “Tokyo Rose”, their next Hampton-Silliphant project opens next year at ACT in San Francisco.
Christopher Hampton, CBE
Christopher Hampton became involved in theatre while studying French and German at Oxford University, and wrote a play in his first year. The Royal Court's subsequent production was so successful that it transferred to the Comedy Theatre while he was still a student, making him the youngest writer ever to have a play performed in the West End - a record which still stands. He said at the time that he hoped to become the oldest writer to have a play in the West End, an ambition he has yet to achieve.
His plays, musicals and translations have so far garnered five Tony Awards, four Olivier Awards, six Evening Standard Awards, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award; prizes for his film and television work include an Oscar, two BAFTAs, a Writers' Guild of America Award, the Prix Italia, a Special Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood Screenwriter of the Year, and The Collateral Award at the Venice Film Festival for Best Literary Adaptation. His works for the stage include original plays (Appomattox, The Talking Cure, White Chameleon, Tales from Hollywood, Treats, Savages, The Philanthropist, Total Eclipse and When Did You Last See My Mother?); plays adapted from novels (Ödön von Horváth’s Youth Without God, Sándor Márai’s Embers, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses); musicals (Sunset Boulevard, Dracula: The Musical and, most recently, Stephen Ward, all with Don Black); libretti (Waiting for the Barbarians, Appomattox and The Trial, all with composer Philip Glass); and many translations (Chekhov, Ibsen, Molière, Horváth, Yasmina Reza, Florian Zeller, and Daniel Kehlmann).
Hampton’s produced screenplays include Ali and Nino, Perfect Mothers (called Adore in the U.S., based on Doris Lessing’s The Grandmothers), A Dangerous Method (based on his play The Talking Cure), Chéri (from the novel by Colette), Atonement (from the novel by Ian McEwan), Imagining Argentina (which he also directed), The Quiet American (from the Graham Greene novel), The Secret Agent (from Joseph Conrad’s novel, and which he also directed), Mary Reilly (from Valerie Martin’s novel inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde), Total Eclipse (from his play of the same name, and in which he also performed), Carrington (the first film he also directed), Dangerous Liaisons (based on his play Les Liaisons Dangereuses), The Good Father (from the novel by Peter Prince), The Honorary Consul (from Graham Greene’s novel), Tales from the Vienna Woods (from the Horváth play) and A Doll’s House (based on his translation of the play by Ibsen). His television scripts include mini-series The Ginger Tree (from the novel by Oswald Wynd), Hôtel du Lac (from the Anita Brookner novel), The History Man (from Malcolm Bradbury’s novel), Able’s Will and most recently The Thirteenth Tale starring Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Colman, based on the novel by Diane Setterfield.
He is executive producer of Why Viet Nam?, a new documentary film with music by Philip Glass, written & directed by Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant, his long time partner on The Talking Cure/A Dangerous Method, Appomattox Play/Opera, The Viet Nam Trilogy & Tokyo Rose.