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Kevin Tran
Professor Castronova
HSS 403-006
10 April 2016
The Documentary that Changed the Film Industry
The film industry plays an important role in our everyday lives as movies are constantly
coming out month after month. Whether they are Hollywood feature films or documentaries,
both bring about the unique visions of our world, cultures and lives. However, each has their own
distinct differences in the way they present their content, style, and how they target the audience.
Feature films typically are made to entertain, giving the audience a way of escaping, whereas
documentaries are more informative and usually promotes a certain point of view while
confronting the audience with reality. Documentaries have truly changed the film industry in that
it is made for the sole purpose of capturing an event, opinion, or current issue, and that was
present in Daughter from Danang, as it is a riveting and moving documentary that made an
impact on the film industry.
In the documentary, Daughter from Danang, it brings forth the filmmaker’s motivation,
as it was made to engage and captivate the audience in learning about the differences between
American culture and Vietnamese culture. This 2002 documentary filmed and directed by Gail
Dolgin and Vicente Franco is about a young Asian-American woman named Heidi Bub or her
Vietnamese name, Mai Thi Hiep whose life is torn between two cultures searching for her
Vietnamese birth mother, who was forced to give her up during Operation Babylift at the end of
the Vietnam War. Heidi would then be adopted by Ann Neville, who was a single American
woman and at the beginning of the documentary, I learned that Heidi has actually been apart
from her adoptive mother as she kicked Heidi out of the house after coming home late one
evening. Heidi was also told to keep her Vietnamese heritage a secret and if anyone asked where
she was from, she would have to say America. Heidi is married and has two children, but the
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separation between herself and her adoptive mother left an emotional effect on Heidi that her
mission to find her birth mother would actually help her accomplish some sort of end.
Once Heidi decides to go and return to Vietnam to find her mother, that is what I believe
was one of the most impactful events in the documentary because we see this culture shock
between Heidi and her mother and family. From this moment in the documentary, I quickly
