Afro-Vietnamese Orphans Tell Their Stories in ‘Indochina: Traces of a Mother’Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Media Archive, Videos on 2014-01-12 02:58Z by Steven |
Afro-Vietnamese Orphans Tell Their Stories in ‘Indochina: Traces of a Mother’
Black Film Center/Archive
Indiana University, Bloomington
2012-04-25
A new(er) documentary film by Idrissou Mora-Kpai follows the stories of Afro-Vietnamese orphans born of Vietnamese mothers and West African fathers – tirailleurs sénégalais – brought by the French to fight la sale guerre, mostly in today’s Viet Nam. The synopsis:
Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film reveals the little known history of African colonial soldiers enlisted to fight for the French in Indochina. Christophe was one of seven Afro-Vietnamese orphans adopted by one of those soldiers when he returned to Benin after the war. The film explores the long lasting impact of bringing together two populations who previously had no ties and sheds light on a frequent practice within colonial history, that of using one colonized people to repress the independence claims of another colonized people.
Told in Vietnam and Benin, the film gives space for the grown Afro-Vietnamese orphans to tell their stories, but also to explore the contradictions of the colonial order…
Read the entire article here.