"Ghost Tape #10" Anniversary: San Diego Intl. Film Festival

Five years ago this week I screened my documentary “Ghost Tape #10” at the San Diego International Film Festival. As Halloween approaches and the spirit month retreats into another passing year, I wanted to share that the film is streaming on VOD exclusively on Vimeo, for those who haven’t yet had a chance to watch it. Beautifully filmed by Jamie Maxtone-Graham with an evocative score by Ricky Berger, their vital creative contributions resonate with my memories of making this project and my own journey to better understand an obscured corner of American history.

Vimeo On Demand: "Ghost Tape #10"

I'm grateful for every teacher and student who invited Ghost Tape #10 into their classroom or onto their laptop these past several years. I learned so much about my methods and practices as a documentary filmmaker through the dialogues we shared. Now available exclusively through Vimeo On Demand, I hope that my film can help educate those following the footprints of war, and where those secret paths lead.

Special thanks to Ca Dao "Cookie" Duong, the Nguyễn Family and the guidance of my USC MVA mentors & professors Jenny Cool & Janet Hoskins.

Ghost Tape #10 from Sean David Christensen on Vimeo.

About the film: Created by the U.S. Army during the American War in Vietnam, "Ghost Tape #10" was one of many audio tapes engineered to psychologically terrify the North Vietnamese Army in its depiction of wandering souls lost in the Buddhist afterlife. By re-examining this weaponization of religious belief, reflections on this artifact of American propaganda lead to meditations on relationships between the living and the dead, asking what truths, if any, still echo within this recording.

Lauded as "...a haunting portrayal of U.S. militarism" by General Anthropology, this award-winning documentary by Sean David Christensen excavates these disturbing secrets of war through a dreamlike narrative that author David Biggs calls "Fascinating...considers elegiac currents through which people in Vietnam continue to reckon with war's ghosts."

Mixtape: The Wandering Soul

Image by Bryan Ahonen, courtesy of Radiolab & WYNC Studios

Earlier this year, Simon Adler of Radiolab & WYNC Studios reached out to me to discuss my film Ghost Tape #10 and its exploration of the US Army’s PSYOP campaigns waged against the Northern Vietnamese (NVA) during the American War in Vietnam. We both reflected on the cruelty of these “ghost tapes” that were created, weaponizing the fear of wandering souls against the psyches of fatigued Vietnamese soldiers far from home. With this latest entry in his new Radiolab series “Mixtape,” Simon has crafted an intricate piece of storytelling as only his celebrated creative team can, with rich texture and testimony from those who left behind their own “footprints of war” (phrasing courtesy of author David Biggs). Special thanks and continued gratitude to my MVA instructor and faculty mentor at the USC Center for Visual Anthropology, professors Jenny Cool & Janet Hoskins, for their support of my research and the ensuing film created there.

Ghost Tape #10 - Virtual Film Screening at Yale University

Special thanks to Erik Harms, Associate Professor on Term of Anthropology & Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University, for his generosity and invitation for myself and my film Ghost Tape #10 to screen at the Southeast Asia Studies Brown Bag this October. It's been a privilege to have these opportunities to interact with students and educators nationwide, and I look forward to their questions!

15th German (Göttingen) International Ethnographic Film Festival

Looking forward to some traveling this summer...thanks to the 15th German International Ethnographic Film Festival. I'm thrilled to be counted amongst this acclaimed collection of documentaries that critically address social, political and cultural themes. Ghost Tape #10 will be engaging with a new, European audience this May. What a remarkable program to be a part of!

Ghost Tape #10: Award of Excellence, 2020 BEA Festival of Media Arts

Out of more than 1,750 entries from 300 colleges nationwide, what a privilege to have Ghost Tape #10 be counted amongst the 18 award-winning "Short Form Documentaries" at the 2020 BEA Festival of Media Arts. An international festival that seeks to enhance professional standards in broadcasting, I'm honored to take part in this event. I’m grateful to my faculty instructors at the USC Department of Anthropology / USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences ~ Prof. Janet Hoskins (Advisor) and Prof. Jenny Cool ~ and to my production team who helped realize this film: Ricky Berger, Pham Thu Hang, Hoa Nguyen, Cookie Duong, Jamie Maxtone-Graham, Thiên Chip & Jedadiah Cracco. Special thanks to Margaret Barnhill Bodemer and the Journal of Vietnamese Studies for their awareness and critique of the film!

Ghost Tape #10 / San Diego International Film Festival

Thrilled to announce that Ghost Tape #10 will make its West Coast premiere at the San Diego International Film Festival next month. I’m honored to share their screens with the 107 selected films in Gala, Spotlight, Narrative, Documentary, and Short Selections. My spirit is grateful to my crew in Vietnam and Los Angeles, and my instructors at the USC Center for Visual Anthropology.

Ghost Tape #10 awarded at SVA Film & Media Festival

The Society for Visual Anthropology’s Film & Media Festival screens work by students, professional anthropologists, and professional filmmakers at the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference. This year’s festival is hosted in the beautiful city of Vancouver, and I can’t wait to present my film alongside other works of visual ethnography at such a critical event. This year’s theme, “Changing Climates,” invites anthropologists and their collaborators to examine how we engage with communities around issues of change over time, including climate change, to envision and build a more equitable future.

XIV Eyes and Lenses Ethnographic Films Review: Warsaw, Poland

About the program: Eyes and Lenses is an annual, 4-day ethnographic film festival organized by the Student Research Group of the Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Institute of the University of Warsaw - “Etno,” and the Witold Dynowski Ethnographic Workshop Association (Stowarzyszenie Pracownia Etnograficzna). Accompanied by discussion panels and meetings with artists, an international program of shorts and features are shown in cooperation with leading centers of visual anthropology and preeminent ethnographic film festivals, such as the Royal Anthropological Institute, Granada Center for Visual Anthropology and Lomonosov Moscow State University. This year's program, June 7th - 10th, will be held at Służewski Dom Kultury in Warsaw, Poland.

Ghost Tape #10 will be screening on June 10th as part of this year’s festival.

Ghost Tape #10 / "Eyes and Lenses"

News of my film’s first language translation outside of the United States came as a warm surprise earlier this week. Screening at the Eyes and Lenses ethnographic film review in Warsaw on June 10th, Ghost Tape #10 will accompany of a program of films “shot by anthropologists with film intent and by filmmakers with ethnographic sensitivity.” I’m honored by the opportunity to share my work with a Polish audience thanks to the "Ethno" Scientific Club of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw, and one translator in particular, who wishes to remain anonymous. To you, I humbly thank you for your labor and attention to detail!

About the festival: “In the over 10-year history of the review, we have shown several hundred films . Among them were the classics of the ethnographic film (Jean Rouch, Jacek Olędzki ...), and the latest films shot both by ethnographers grabbing the camera and filmmakers endowed with ethnographic imagination. We try to make every next edition surprise our viewers.” (From Eyes and Lenses)

2019 screening will take place at the SŁUŻEW CULTURE CENTER - Warsaw, Poland, June 7th-10th.

AIFVF (Athens International Film + Video Festival) 2019 Award Winners

It is my profound honor to count Ghost Tape #10 among the incredible, award-winning films at the 2019 Athens International Film + Video Festival. Awarded a Special Jury Prize, the “Alden Award,” from a guest panel of renowned artists and filmmakers, I was moved by this unexpected surprise early this morning. One of my favorite destinations for humane and invigorating experimental and documentary works, AIF+VF continues to inspire me with their lovingly-crafted shorts blocks, as delicate as ever, this year…definitely not to be my last! Special thanks to Festival Director David Colagiovanni and 2019 Jury Members: Laura Harrison, Lynne Sachs, Chris Sullivan & Jodi Wille.

2019 Athens International Film + Video Festival - Award Winners

Documentary Short Award: Stone Engravings and the Three-Colored Chickenpox Tale by Vinícius Lopes & Luciana Mazeto (Brazil)

Narrative Short Award: De Terugkeer van Sooi Dingemans by Marc Bryssinck (Belgium)

Animated Short Award: Egg by Martina Scarpelli (France)

Experimental Short Award: Goodbye Fantasy by Amber Bemak & Nadia Granados (Mexico)

Black Bear Award (Best use of sound): Pain is Mine by Farshid Akhlaghi (Australia)

Film House Award (For visionary filmmaking): Shooting Crows by Christine Hürzeler (Switzerland)

Alden Award: Ghost Tape #10 by Sean David Christensen (USA)

Narrative Feature Award: We Are Thankful by Joshua Magor (South Africa)

Documentary Feature Award: A Thousand Girls Like Me by Sahra Mani (Afghanistan)

Special Jury Mentions:

Fest (Animation) by Nikita Diakur (Germany)

Elder Abuse (Experimental) by Drew Durepos (USA)

I Have Sinned a Rapturous Sin (Experimental) by Maryam Tafakory (Iran/United Kingdom)

Fauve (Narrative) by Jeremy Comte (Canada)

Ghost Tape #10: World Premiere at the University of Southern California

This Friday, at the world premiere screening of my USC MVA (Masters of Arts in Visual Anthropology) cohorts' thesis films, Ghost Tape #10 will be shared with its first audience. Its screening will mark the one year anniversary of my first midnight in Vietnam, its cloak of night shrouding the miles I had left before me, miles before I could fully grasp what story I was trying to tell. The humidity was so intense that summer, the combined heat and moisture had eroded the black fabric coating my headphone's earmuffs, leaving its flakes clinging to my neck like pieces of dead skin. Each time I fished them out of my backpack to record an interview, there was less of it left, and each time, I felt like a fool. 

It seemed, for a time while I was there, that everything was slowly falling apart. Deaf and dumb to the language that surrounded me, my exhaustion found new ways to undermine my assuredness, always keeping me off-balance. Thankfully, I was blessed with a remarkable group of guides, artists and craftspeople who helped me find my way, some of whom will be joining me in my school's darkened theatre on Friday. Under the mentorship of my professors who challenged me to take the right road instead of the easy one, I look back on a year and a filmmaking journey that still feels impossible. But then again, most dreams are.

ABOUT THE FILM:

Created by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, "Ghost Tape #10" was one of many tapes engineered as part of "Operation: Wandering Soul," a psychological operations campaign designed to intimidate and demoralize the North Vietnamese Army. These audio tapes would echo throughout war zones, their soundtracks consisting of actors portraying grieving family members, or voices from the dead, longing to be reunited with their loved ones. Exploiting the traditional Buddhist belief that, if denied a proper burial in their homeland, the dead wander the world aimlessly, these recordings were originally conceived of as attempts to weaponize an opposing culture's religious beliefs against them. Ghost Tape #10, the film, focuses on unearthing and re-examining this weaponization of belief through the context of modern day Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American religious practice. Through dreamlike visualizations and interviews in Vietnam and Los Angeles, reactions to this obscure piece of American propaganda lead to larger discussions about how modern day relationships between the living and the dead are carried out, and what truths, if any, still echo within this recording.

CREDITS

Camera
Sean David Christensen
Jamie Maxtone-Graham

Assistant Camera
Thiên Chip

Editor
Sean David Christensen

Translation & Transcription
Ca Dao "Cookie" Duong

Music & Sound Design
Ricky Berger

Supervising Sound Editor
Michael Cullen

Re-Recording Mixer
Anna Wozniewicz

Miniatures & Animation
Sean David Christensen

Figurines
Jedadiah (Joseph) Cracco

Field Guides & Interview Translators (Vietnam) 
Thành Hoa Nguyễn
Pham Thu Hang

With
Margaret B. Bodemer
Rick Hofmann
Tina Huynh
The Nguyễn Family
Tang
Thich Dao Tuong

USC MVA Production Faculty
Michael Bodie
Jennifer Cool
Lanita Jacobs
Robert Lemelson
Nancy Lutkehaus

Faculty Advisor
Janet Hoskins

- - -

Produced at the Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California
Copyright 2018, Sean David Christensen & the University of Southern California

"Ghost Tape #10" figurine by Jedadiah Cracco

After clearing its final sound mix at Chapman University last week, I'm excited to begin sharing more images and sounds from my upcoming film, Ghost Tape #10, with you all. A visualization of the effects of audio propaganda during the Vietnam War, this figurine of a North Vietnamese solider (designed & sculpted by Jedadiah Cracco), represents one of the central conceits of the film: unearthing the past. Through dreamlike visuals, I hope the film can explore this connection between the living & the dead that I experienced in Northern Vietnam, and what stories still lie underground, waiting to be pulled up into the light.