Seattle Asian American Film Festival 2021

Việt Kiều: Vietnamese American Shorts

Expired March 15, 2021 6:59 AM
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These contemporary stories tackle fraught family relationships, creating new livelihoods, collective memory and many other moments that shape Vietnamese American lives. No Crying at the Dinner Table meditatively breaks open family tensions in order to resolve them. Zooming out from individual to community heartbreak and healing, The Morning Passing on el Cajon Boulevard acknowledges the experience of losing loved ones from far away. Following two short films on the process of making a living in a new place, Upon Skin, Upon Stone rounds out the program by inviting the audience to look ahead to future possibilities.


Co-presented by Kandelia (formerly Vietnamese Friendship Association) and Northwest Vietnamese News

Julie is a young and ambitious second generation Vietnamese American funeral director working in City Heights, known as the refugee neighborhood of San Diego, California. She is used to managing funerals every week, but after the unexpected passing of her own father, she seeks help from Đồ Thái Uyên, a San Diego legend who has managed funerals (and taxes) for Asian families since the 1980s. THE MORNING PASSING ON EL CAJON BOULEVARD is a brief and intimate glimpse into the ways refugee families mourn the loss of loved ones far from their homelands. (Content Warning: Death)

  • Year
    2019
  • Runtime
    19 minutes
  • Language
    English, Vietnamese
  • Country
    United States
  • Premiere
    PNW Premiere
  • Note
    English open Captions and Vietnamese open Captions
  • Director
    Quyên Nguyen-Le