Daughter From Da Nang is a heartrending documentary that shatters your expectations of a happy ending, and a gripping emotional drama about longing, identity, and the personal legacy of war.
On the surface, Heidi is a veritable “All-American Girl” from the small town of Pulaski, Tennessee. However, her real name is Mai Thi Hiep. Born in Da Nang, Vietnam in 1968, she is the mixed-race daughter of an American soldier and a Vietnamese mother.
Fearing for her daughter’s safety at the end of the war, Hiep’s mother sent her to the United States as part of Operation Babylift, a Ford administration program designed to bring orphans and mixed-race children to the United States for adoption before they meet one child. After the U.S. troop withdrawal, an uncertain future fell victim to Vietnam. Mother and daughter will not know each other for 22 years.
Now, miraculously, they are reunited in Da Nang. But that seems to be the hint of a happy ending, with Heidi and her Vietnamese relatives finding themselves in the midst of a bewildering culture clash, at the mercy of conflicting feelings, that will change their lives forever.
In intimate and sometimes haunting moments, Daughter from Da Nang reveals in depth how wide the gaps in cultural differences can be, and how deep the wounds of war can be – even within a single family.
