Surname Viet Given Name Nam

1989, Trinh T. Minh-ha, 108 minutes

Surname Viet Given Name Nam was made outside of the titular country, composed of newsreels and archival footage as well as printed sources. The film features interviews with five contemporary Vietnamese women. Director Trinh T. Minh-ha shows both staged and “real” interviews to depict the invisible politics of interviews and its relationship to filmic representation. The movie asks the viewer to consider issues such as plural identity, the fictions inherent in documentary techniques, and film as translation. Surname Viet Given Name Nam won the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film & Video Festival.