documentary
What I Had to Leave Behind will be screening at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival. Now celebrating its 13th season, this year celebrates new talent, feature film premieres and compelling stories from artists of all backgrounds, cultures, ages, abilities and identities.
I’m honored to share the screen with my colleagues in the “New York, New York” shorts block. Tickets are now on sale for both in-person and streaming.
A brilliant film I had the pleasure of discovering at this year’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, No Crying at the Dinner Table by Carol Nguyen is a spare and meditative portrait of her family. Delicate and unflinchingly honest, Travelling Distribution says it best: “…an emotionally complex and meticulously composed portrait of intergenerational trauma, grief, and secrets in this cathartic documentary about things left unsaid.”
Thao Nguyen-Duong
Ngoc Nguyen
Michelle Nguyen
Carol Nguyen
Production : Carol Nguyen (Concordia Film School)
Director : Carol Nguyen
DoP : Walid Jabri
Production Design : Carol Nguyen
Editor : Carol Nguyen, Andres Solis
Sound : Giulio Trejo-Martinez
Music : Arie Van de Ven
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!
This ingenious animated film weaves intricate stop-motion together with documentary storytelling – a feat that becomes more captivating after every screening. Winner of the Jury Award for Best Animated Short at Palm Springs ShortFest, along with being shortlisted for the “Best Animated Short Film” Oscar at the 2019 Academy Awards, Dani by Lizzy Hogenson is a marvel of craft and imagination. Special thanks to Meghan Oretsky of the Ladies With Lenses Vimeo channel, supporters of this, and the best short films on the Internet written and/or directed by women.
Created by Lizzy Hogenson
Sound & Music - Ricky Lee Berger
Editor - Robert Panico
Scientific Advisor - Stephanie Shishido
15th German (Göttingen) International Ethnographic Film Festival; Official seal.
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!
“Tayra and I grew up on a beach in the north east of Brazil. We were inseparable. The sea breeze brings me back happy memories.”
This stunning film by director Nara Normande was my favorite at the 2019 Palm Springs International ShortFest. Blessed by the fortune of having Guaxuma programmed in the same shorts block as my friend Lizzy’s, this devastating and powerful stop-motion documentary evoked these special “memories” through sand paintings on glass. Extraordinary work that left me in tears.
Animation frame from Guaxuma (2018), Dir: Nara Normande
Dani - Directed & Animated by Lizzy Hogenson
I am inspired by my friend Lizzy Hogenson and her film Dani, a claymation documentary short about a daughter delivering the news of her breast cancer prognosis to her mother. The intricacies of their relationship are painstakingly handcrafted, one subtle movement at a time, from yarn, beads, cardboard & felt. These fragile elements are bound together by the hard work of producer Kyle McClary, editor Robert Panico and original music & sound editing by Ricky Berger. An official selection to this year's Oscar-qualifying Palm Springs International ShortFest, I'm eagerly awaiting to see it on the big screen next week!
XIV Eyes and Lenses Ethnographic Films Review - Film program
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.
Sometimes in a university classroom, other times in a theatre, screening Ghost Tape #10 has given me the opportunity to quietly reflect in the back row, in darkness. After sharing my film this afternoon with the students of UC Riverside, my memories of making it and of my gratitude to one particular individual, came to the surface.
Filmmaker Pham Thu Hang, director of The Future Cries Beneath Our Soils, was gracious enough to guide me through my noble stumbles in Vietnam, summer of 2017. Her patience and grace in how she sees the world is reflected within her work, her camera capturing light like a painter's brush - in this, a her film about five men enjoying an odd friendship in Vietnam's Quảng Tri province, a site still bearing the scars of war.
Cảm ơn, Hang 🍟your spirit always finds its way to say hello to me during each screening of mine. Here’s to the next time we see each other!
DER (Documentary Educational Resources) 50th Anniversary Symposium, celebrating the films of Timothy Asch and his creative legacy at USC; November 9th, 2018.
Timothy Asch's (1932-1994) impact on documentary filmmaking was profound, as was his role in continuing the legacy of the USC Center for Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California, the same institution that incubated and supported the development of my most recent documentary, Ghost Tape #10.
On November 9th, 2018, DER (Documentary Educational Resources) 50th Anniversary Symposium provided a unique opportunity for all those in attendance to reflect on Asch's pioneering work of incorporating audio-visual media into anthropological research and teaching. Accompanied by a special screening of excerpts from the beautifully restored Yanomamö film series, Asch's vision and generosity of spirit were celebrated by those who knew him and admired his work.
It was an honor to guest blog for DER in covering this event - my own small way of showing tribute to the USC CVA, an institution that has meant so much to my professional growth & development as a documentary filmmaker.
The Academy Award-qualifying Athens International Film + Video Festival awaits Ghost Tape #10 next month. I’m honored to be included in this year’s documentary program, alongside AIFVF’s 46-year legacy of finely curated shorts & features. Very special thanks to the faculty & instructors of the USC Center for Visual Anthropology MVA for their support - my film wouldn’t have been possible without their guidance and patience.
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
At NewFilmmakers LA earlier this month, I was honored to share the screen with director Ellie Wen's Single Mother Only Daughter, a lovingly-crafted portrait of her relationship with her mother. Stitching new connections between analog memories culled from her collection of home movies, diaries and childhood photographs, Wen traces the synchronous orbits of two lives circling closer together with age. As the film navigates through a collage of VHS footage chronicling birthday parties, ballet recitals and impromptu Mother/Daughter karaoke performances, their bond is strengthened by the film’s aural foundation; A recorded phone conversation between the two. Auspiciously, Wen's husband, Greg Katz began filming her end of the line one evening, capturing her moments of realization & revelation with their shared past that would’ve otherwise remained in the dark.
Naturally, I find a kinship with Wen's work, as much of my directorial efforts are traced along similar lines of connecting the past with the present, and the web of dreams/memories that form between its many points. Both my latest film, The Duel and Single Mother Only Daughter attempt to reconcile childhood mysteries with a waking adult life that refuses to shake them free, perhaps motivated by a duty to forgive or better understand their parents. Film is one of the rare art forms in that respect, as it grants the artist the tools to fold time in on itself to form new strength in re-examining the power of memories and the role they continue to play in shaping their lives. For Wen, Single Mother Only Daughter is a beautiful effort in striving for that new understanding.
Director Ellie Wen relates the creative challenges of Single Mother Only Daughter to the NewFilmmakers LA DocuSlate audience on December 2nd, 2017 at the South Park Center. From the left, cinematographer of The Duel, Aaron Gambel & I look on.