2022 | Vietnam, USA | Fiction

The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon

  • 60 mins
  • Director | Tuan Andrew Nguyen

This film is currently not available.   

A scrapyard owner, whose family and community are still dealing with the legacy of the Vietnam War, comes across an unexpected chance at healing and rebirth.

Sharp, no-nonsense Nguyet runs a scrapyard business in Quang Tri, while making sculptures from bomb metal. She also cares for her mother who is still grieving the loss of her husband, killed by unexploded ordnance. Quang Tri is one of the most heavily bombarded regions in the history of modern warfare, and the land and its people continue to be scarred by deep trauma.

When Nguyet chances upon a peculiar connection between herself and a famous deceased American sculptor, she discovers the resurrective possibilities of art in the face of enduring cycles of violence. Amid transnational histories of war, new rituals arise from deeply rooted local beliefs. This film explores the importance of objects as counter-archives, and the haunting, subliminal power of sound and music.

legacy sculpture trauma violence war
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