
A VIETNAMESE-CANADIAN LEGACY
PLAY TRAILER
Directed by ROBBIE HARt
Edited by ANIA SMOLENSKAIA
Produced by ROBBIE HART - PETER RAYMONT - STEPHEN PANICCIA - GARY J. SMITH
Produced by Adobe Productions International and White Pine Pictures in collaboration with Heritage Canada-Patrimone Canada
HOT DOCS CINEMA
Wed. Oct. 22nd @ 7:00 p.m.
Special Guests:
Han Trinh, Vice External President of the Vietnamese
Association of Toronto
Tracey Maulfair, UNHCR Representative in Canada
Post -Screening Panelists
Anh Vu-Lieberman, Designer/Entrepreneur (“The Baby Born at Sea”)
Robbie Hart, Director/Co-producer
Gary J. Smith, Co-producer & former Canadian Ambassador
Naomi Alboin, Former Ontario Coordinator for the Settlement of Indochinese Refugees
Moderator: Susan Ormiston, CBC Journalist/Foreign Correspondent
An extraordinary mother-daughter story, their escape from war-torm Vietnam, a birth on a sinking ship, a heroic rescue at sea, and a new life in Canada
It’s late April 1975 and the Communist North Vietnamese army has entered the city and thousands are desperate to flee. Mui is nine months pregnant with Anh and they are on the roof of the American embassy. Her husband and two year old son are also there hoping to escape on a helicopter. When the last US Marine Chopper lifts off, they are still stranded on the roof.
What transpires over the next three weeks is an improbable and remarkable sequence of events. The family escapes on the Truong Xuan, the last Cargo ship to leave Saigon; Anh’s birth on that boat two days later as it begins to sink; a Danish freighter, the Clara Maersk that comes to their rescue; a British Royal Air Force helicopter that also comes to their rescue; a refugee camp in Hong Kong where they meet Canadian immigration officers; and lastly their emigration to Canada.
50 years later - mother, daughter and other key protagonists connected to their story, including the helicopter crewman and the Canadian immigration officer meet in Montreal to reconstruct how it happened and who they’ve become today. Anh calls it “bringing together all the pieces of her survival puzzle - a reconciliation of the past and present”.
SCREENINGS
Thursday, June 19, 2025, 7 pm
Bytowne Cinema
325 Rideau Street, Ottawa, ON
LUNENBURG DOC FEST
Saturday, Sep 20, 2025, 3 pm
Sunday, Sep 21, 2025, 4:15 pm
United Church Hall Theatre
136 Cumberland St.
Lunenburg, NS
Tickets
HOT DOCS CINEMA
Wednesday, October 22, 2025, 7 pm
506 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1Y3