On Monday, we talk with film director Le-Van Kiet about his film, Dust of Life (Bui Doi) about why he chose to bring to the screen the fraught lives of Vietnamese youth in 1990s Orange County. We also chat with the lead actor in his film, Devon Duy Nguyen, who plays Johnny, a troubled youth in a gang. [Devon Nugyen, it turns out, could not make the show.]
Director Le-Van was born in Vietnam and came in the second wave of boat people to the U.S. in 1982 when he was 4 years old. He was awarded a grant for best student film while at film school at UCLA. Dust of Life is his debut feature film.
Actor Nguyen was born in Minnesota and later moved to Orange County, where he has been a DJ in Hollwyood and the OC since he was 16. He performs in a live music band, Almost Home. A first-time actor, he is a student at Orange Coast community College.
The film includes a sequence where a local policeman takes a photograph of Johnny even after he protested. The struggle over the civil rights of youth photographed by OC police in the 1990s involved AWARE, the Alliance Working for Asian Rights and Empowerment, which was co-founded by Subversity's show host the same year (1993) the show started broadcasting.
The show airs from 9-10 a.m. on 16 April 2007 on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Irvine, California, and via the Internet on kuci.org.
Dust of Life will be screened on Sunday, April 22, 2007 at UCI, HIB 100, at 7 p.m., as VIFF's closing night film. For more info., see the VIFF website: http://www.vietfilmfest.com.
Resources:
Film site:
http://www.dustoflifemovie.com/
Film Trailer:
http://www.dustoflifemovie.com/Trailer.htm
AWARE and the struggle to stop police mugbooks:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang/aware2.htm
Thanx for listening!
dan
Daniel C. Tsang Host, Subversity "What's behind and beyond the Orange Curtain" Mondays 9-10 a.m. on 88.9 fm, kuci.org KUCI talk page: http://kuci.org/talk/ KUCI Full-text Archive: http://kuci.org/~dtsang/kucift.html Subversity: http://kuci.org/~dtsang E-mail: subversity@kuci.org Daniel Tsang, KUCI, PO Box 4362, Irvine CA 92616, USA _______________________________________________ KUCI.org 88.9FM - "eclectic music, engaging talk"