Fifty After the Fall: A Film Festival and Symposium

CONTENT DIFFERS BY TIME SLOT; PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE REGISTERING!

Symposium Dates and Content

Thursday, April 3, 2025, from 4:00 pm-7:00 pm:

A Short Film screening and conversation with filmmakers Quyen Nguyen-Le, Richard Van, and Van Tran Nguyen will follow. Light refreshments will be provided in a mixer following the event.

HIẾU, 2019

Directed by Richard Van, Award Winner of Deuxième Prix: Cannes Cinéfondation Sélection

Nước (Water/Homeland), 2016

Directed by Quyên Nguyễn-Lê, Winner of Outfest: Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival’s Best of Fest

Friday, April 4, 2025:

4:00 pm - 6:30 pm

THE MOTHERLOAD, 2024

Featuring filmmakers Van Tran Nguyen, Alex Derwick

7:00 pm - 9:30 pm

NEW WAVE, 2024 7:00 - 9:30 PM

Featuring Keynote address with filmmaker Elizabeth Ai

About the Symposium

April 30, 2025, marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Fall of Saigon, an end to The American War in Vietnam (popularly referred to as the Vietnam War). Considered the first televised war, American civilians witnessed atrocities through their television screens, garnering criticism as well as outrage. This anniversary approaches us at a time when similar sentiments are held, leading us to ask: what have we learned? Themes of conflict, displacement, and diaspora are evermore pertinent.

This two-day symposium will be programmed with these themes at the center, engaging our students and community members with guest speakers from the diaspora and their material manifestations (films and short-form media) of these questions writ large. The event will include a programmed short-film(s) festival with interlocution from filmmakers, writers, and impact producers, discussing their creative engagement with the program’s theme.

This symposium will bring new perspectives to Georgetown, with a panel to guide conversations regarding cultural memory and questions that this anniversary may bring to a new generation of Vietnamese Americans. The theme, although culturally specific, is intended for us to engage with the larger question of what remains after the rubble.

Host or Publisher Georgetown University Dept. of Performing Arts