OH, SAIGON
a war in the family
documentary film of about the last Vietnamese family to be airlifted out of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War
Watch the Oh, Saigon Trailer
The Hoangs were the last people on the very last helicopter taking civilians out at the end of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, one daughter didn’t make it on.
Oh, Saigon: A war in the family
logline
In 1975, filmmaker Doan Hoang and her family were airlifted out on the last civilian helicopter leaving Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. 25 years later, she returns to uncover her family’s divided past, with family members behind enemy lines and a story of betrayal her family never told her.
short synopsis
Airlifted out of Vietnam on April 30, 1975, Doan Hoang’s family was on the last civilian helicopter out of the country at the end of the Vietnam War. Twenty-five years later, she sets out to uncover their story. Her father, a former South Vietnamese major, confronts his political differences with his brothers, whom he never mentioned to his children. Meanwhile, Hoang tries to reconcile her own survivor guilt with her half-sister, who was mistakenly separated from the family during the escape.
One of the rare Vietnam War documentary films made by a Vietnamese-born director, Oh, Saigon gives a Vietnamese perspective of the Vietnam War and its end.
“I didn’t have any more
roads to choose: to be
captured or killed by the
communists, or to take
my family to a place that
wasn’t our home.”
-Nam, the father
Your father left and has done nothing for his country. He never loved his country. He can’t call himself a patriot.
- Uncle Hai, Nam’s communist brother
I never believed in war. I don’t have any ideals. I didn’t believe in communism or capitalism, anything. But governments, they make you fight for them, whether you want to or not.
- Uncle Dzung, Nam’s younger
brother & former ARVN sergeant
Our mother, she loves me, but she loves herself more than she loves me.
But I’m a good mother. I would never leave my child behind.
- Van, the Half-Sister, left behind on the last day of the Vietnam War
As we were getting on that last helicopter, a Marine gave me a tennis racquet. We took off and then building blew up.
In America, I was thrown into another culture without being prepared for it. I didn’t go around telling anyone, hey, I’m Vietnamese.
- Nat, the Brother, who was six during the Fall of Saigon
I wanted my family to be normal. It was naive of me to think the wounds of war could be undone.