DAUGHTER FROM DANANG

A heartbreaking documentary that upsets your expectations of happily-ever-afters, DAUGHTER FROM DANANG goes off like a landmine in the soul. To all outward appearances Heidi is the proverbial all-American girl, hailing from Pulaski, Tennessee. But her real name is Hiep. She's the mixed-race daughter of an American serviceman and an abandoned Vietnamese wife who worked on a naval base during the long-running war in Indochina. During the closing months of the conflict her birth mother, Mai, gave up the seven-year-old during ?Operation Babylift,? a Ford Administration plan relocating such children to the US for adoption before they fell victim to a frighteningly uncertain future at the mercy of the Communists. That airlift was the last she saw of Hiep for 22 years. Now, as if by a miracle, Mai and Heidi are reunited in Danang. But what seems like the cue for a happy ending is just as deceptive as camouflage fatigues, as the filmmakers show that Heidi's stateside life, under a demanding, emotionally-cold single mother, was no fairy tale. And, as ?Hiep,? her loving reception by Mai's large (but impoverished) clan holds as many snares as a field of tiger-pits. The CIFF has in the past presented many fine Vietnam documentaries such as “Vietnam: Long Time Coming” (23rd CIFF, 1999). Provocative and powerful, DAUGHTER FROM DANANG, stands worthy of marching with the platoon. (Partially in Vietnamese with English subtitles)