December 22, 2003

Sundance "Best Documentary" Winner to be Screened at MASS MoCA

(North Adams, Mass.) Awarded the Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, Daughter From Danang is a provocative look at the unexpected consequences of war and on family. The film follows a young Vietnamese-American college student --, born in Danang but adopted by a U.S. family at the age of seven through Operation Babylift --, as she returns to Vietnam to see her mother for the first time in more than two decades. MASS MoCA will screen the film on Thursday, January 22, at 8 P.M. as part of it's "American Outsiders" documentary series.

When the U.S. military withdrew from Vietnam it left many Vietnamese mothers with children of American soldiers in fear for those their children's lives. The Vietcong waswere very prejudiced against people of mixed race. When Operation Babylift promised to fly orphaned children to a better life in the U.S., many mothers took advantage, sending parting with their own children in the hopes of keeping them safe. Daughter From Danang follows one such child, Mai Thi Hiep, who was adopted by an unaffectionate family in Pulaski, Tennessee (birthplace of the Klu Klux Klan). , Rrenamed Heidi Bub, and grew up,she grew up in an all-American atmosphere, and was discouraged from keeping in touch with her Asian heritage, in an all-American atmosphere.

More than 20 years later, ready to assert her independence, Bub defies her adoptive mother and travels to Vietnam to meet her birth mother. At first the reunion is a joyous one but when her stepfather bluntly points out that she is the product of his wife's infidelity while he was fighting in the war, and her impoverished half-siblings ask what her adoptive family intends to do to help them, the reunion quickly turns tense and bittertakes a turn for the worse.

Tickets to Daughter From Danang are $5.50 (members save 10%) and are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office (even for members and children under six).).located off Marshall Street in North Adams from 11 A.M. until 555 P.M. Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesdays). Reservations can also be made or over the phone by calling 413.662.21112111 during Box Office hours or placed online at www.massmoca.org. Doors open at 7 for food and drink before the film.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall St. in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org