The UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies and The UCLA Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media are pleased to present a screening of the documentary film, The Sound of the Violin in My Lai (Tieng Vi Cam O My Lai) and a discussion with the filmmaker Tran Van Thuy.

The Sound of the Violin in My Lai (1998) was the winner of the "Best Short Film" award at the 1999 Asia-Pacific Film Festival held in Bangkok, Thailand.

It follows the visit of former U.S. soldier Mike Boehm to My Lai Village in Vietnam. My Lai was the location of a horrific massacre that took place during the war in March 1968. More than 500 men, women and children were killed when American troops stormed the tiny village in the central province of Quang Ngai. Mr. Boehm, while not present at the massacre, was stationed elsewhere in Vietnam at the time. Upon returning to Vietnam in 1992, he went to My Lai to play his violin at the memorial as an offering to the spirits of the dead there.

Thuy revisits this frightening chapter of history with deep humanity. Audiences worldwide have applauded the film for its sensitive, yet unflinching reconstruction of the events at My Lai. Although the film interviews several former U.S. soldiers, the core of The Sound of the Violin in My Lai rests with Boehm. Thuy recognized in the American's story an allegory for the aftermath of war, where people have to go on living with the emotional consequences of conflict.

Tran Van Thuy, born in 1940, graduated from the Vietnam Film School with a degree in Cinematography. He spent five years as an anthropologist living with the nomadic Khu Sung people before being swept up by the war in 1966. He served as a combat cameraman until 1972. He has written and directed more than 20 films, several of which have won international prizes. Among them are My People, My Village (1970); Betrayal (1979); Hanoi in One's Eye (1982); and Once There Was a Village (1994).

** PLEASE NOTE THAT THE LOCATION OF THE SCREENING HAS BEEN CHANGED **

Cost : Free and open to the public.

www.international.ucla.edu/cseas/

Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television