Linh Nga is an American based producer and director. Her documentary Inside This Peace will be available on Vimeo across America this Christmas. (Photo: voyagela.com) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The documentary Inside This Peace featuring aforgotten victim of Agent Orange living in Vietnam will be available on VimeoOn Demand across America this Christmas.
The documentary by America-based producer and director Linh Nga tells the storyof Thoa, a forgotten victim of Agent Orange in Vietnam, whose younger brotheris also an AO victim. Thoa has “scary skin with huge black patches, numerouslumps and hair all over her body”. The lumps are filled with fluid and can’t bedrained.
For decades, Thoa’s parents have been looking for Government help.
“Peace is defined as ‘freedom from the cessation of war and violence’ and peacein our documentary is just like their daily life after the war and the legacyof war that we have to face now," Linh Nga said on a talkshow.
Linh Nga first met Thoa when she was 13 years old when they sat next to eachother on a plane on the way to a charity performance in the central city of DaNang.
The hairs on Thoa’s fingers were very prickly. When she moved her arm next toLinh Nga’s, it was almost painful, but not the same pain she felt for her.
"That’s one of the reasons I wanted to make a documentary about her and dosomething for Thoa and people like her," Linh Nga said.
Linh Nga won the TV Best Series award for her Xuoi Nguoc Duong Tran (In TheShadow Of Life) movie at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in2003.
“The documentary is an interesting blend because it portrays a sense of theenvironment, the city and people like Thoa, following her struggle and hopesand what she’s going through that shows how brave she is,” said film directorand music composer Roy Finch.
In 1961, the American army began spraying the so-called “herbicide” in Vietnam,triggering the ‘biggest and longest chemical warfare with the most catastrophicconsequences in human history’.
From 1961-1971, America sprayed 80 million litres of toxic chemicals, 61 percentof which were AO that contained at least 366kg of dioxin – one of the mosttoxic substances ever known in history. That exposed 4.8 million Vietnamesepeople to the toxin.
The catastrophic impacts of dioxin are long lasting, making many womeninfertile and a large number of children born with deformities.
The documentary Inside This Peace was screened at Lift Off Global NetworkFestival on December 16. — VNS/VNA
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