The Motherload – 2025

Friday, April 11, 5:15 PM
Saturday, April 12, 7:30 PM

The Motherload
Directors: Van Tran Nguyen, Alex Derwick, Narrative,USA, Viet Nam, 92 min
An imaginative telling of the story of a Vietnamese American mother-daughter duo who, in their attempt to heal the rift between them, reenact and satirize scenes from celebrated Vietnam War films while depicting a diasporic reality. Conflict among the mother-daughter duo arises when Jessca embarks on a quest to find a home that once belonged to her mother’s family during pre-war Vietnam. Kim (Jessca’s mother), happy in her new but precarious position in America, fights to stay stateside. As their desires cause them to grow apart they are faced with old myths about the motherland, depicted in a public-broadcasting television show. With a cast consisting only of two Vietnamese-American women this movie takes a closer look at what has been lost in war, what we find in the rubble, and how to hold on to what remains.