Irvine, CA- October 4, 2011: Duc H. Nguyen, the producer of the EMMY-Award Winning documentary, BOLINAO 52 signs an agreement with the University of California-Irvine Libraries to deposit the materials recorded during the production of the documentary to the UCIspace @ Libraries (http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu). This is an open access service for the UCI community to publish, manage, and preserve diverse research output. This is a the first step of a multi-lateral collaboration between RIGHT HERE IN MY POCKET PRODUCTIONS and The UC Irvine South East Asian Archive (SEAA) to preserve multimedia information on the Vietnamese boat people and make them readily available to the general public.
The materials submitted include digital video recordings and transcriptions of interviews of the documentary, recordings of significant events that took place during the production of the film such as the return of Tung Trinh to the village of Bolinao in the Philippines and the meeting with USS Dubuque former Chief Petty Officer, William Cloonan. These recordings reveal many details of the horrifying escape told by Tung Trinh, BOLINAO 52 survivor. Also these raw footage reveal Bill Cloonan’s deep sorrow and guilt in witnessing the abandonment of the boat at sea without any power to change the situation.
“This is a major step toward an initiative to create a long-lasting digital archive for Vietnamese boat people. It has been our goal since the early stages of the film project. And now, it has become a reality. I’m so honored that UC-Irvine Southeast Asian Archive will be the home for these extensive materials,” said Duc H. Nguyen. Meanwhile representatives from UCI state: “The UC Irvine Libraries Southeast Asian Archive is most pleased to accept this generous gift from Duc H. Nguyen which includes over 15 hours of digital video used to create his Emmy Award-winning documentary, BOLINAO 52. The Southeast Asian Archive is dedicated to documenting the experiences of refugees and immigrants who left Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The Archive has collected a variety of documentation about boat people, but Nguyen's gift is unique for its powerful testimony, as survivors from BOLINAO 52 and witnesses tell their stories on video. The Archive will preserve the video footage so that future generations may hear the voices and see the faces of these survivors as they describe their plight in their own words. Telling and preserving these stories are essential for healing and understanding, and the Southeast Asian Archive will ensure that record of these experiences will endure. Many audiences will benefit from this gift, including students doing research papers and refugees seeking ways to make sense of their own experiences. In the near future, the Archive plans to make these videos available online for anyone to learn about this perilous, tragic journey and to shed light on the untold stories of over one million other Vietnamese boat people.”
For more information about the Southeast Asian Archive, please see http://seaa.lib.uci.edu.
For more information about BOLINAO 52, please see: http://www.bolinao52.com/ or contact:
Duc H. Nguyen
BOLINAO 52 Director/Producer
duc@rhimp.com
510.593.5395
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