It was way back in mid 2016 when director Yasmin Mistry from the Foster Care Film Community Engagement Project first contacted me about the possibility of working with her on what would become a very special project.
Yasmin had been creating short documentaries revolving around the stories of adults who had grown up in foster care and one of the stories she had been working on had recently taken a major twist as the main subject Juliet had been reunited with her biological sister Hong whom she hadn’t seen or had any contact with since she was a baby. Juliet and her younger sister Jen planned to travel to Vietnam later that year to meet Hong in person and Yasmin planned to turn their story into a feature documentary film.
The Backstory
Juliet was born during the Vietnam War to an American father Russel and her Vietnamese mother Tien.
Hong was Tien’s first child, her father was Vietnamese as well but we understand that she is not in contact with her father. When Russell’s tour of Vietnam came to end Hong was left behind with an uncle in Bac Lieu Province in the Mekong Delta as she had no biological ties to the US and was unable to leave Vietnam with Russel, Tien and Juliet.
An old polaroid of Hong, baby Juliet and Tien taken during the Vietnam War.
When Juliet was 12 her sister Jen was born in the US but 6 months later Tien was killed in a car accident and from that moment on Juliet lost all contact with the Vietnamese side of her family. Both Juliet and Jen think that their Dad was wonderful when things were good, occasionally he would loose control though and they both grew up suffering various forms of abuse. The abuse got worse after Tien died and Juliet ran away from home and lived on the streets of D.C. The streets though ended up being even worse and after a few months she returned home to find that her Dad had left town with Jen and he had never reported Juliet missing.
This is how Juliet ended up in the foster care system. She bounced around to 15 different homes and was institutionalised numerous times before finding a “forever family”. Over the coming years she started to get her life back together and she searched for Jen and found out that Russel had remarried and moved to Texas with Jen.
One day one of Jen’s school teachers had asked her about some bruises and Jen was taken away from her father and put into foster care as well.
Jen and Juliet eventually reunited at the funeral of their father. Initially things went sour but they were reunited again once Jen aged out of the foster care system. At this time Juliet was in her mid 30’s and trying to start a family but she couldn’t get pregnant and Jen donated one of her eggs so that Juliet could have the family that she had always wanted.
Juliet grew up with the understanding that her mother was killed by a drunk driver and she decided that in order for her to properly move on that she needed to forgive the driver of the other vehicle so she tracked them down. In doing so she discovered some information that she didn’t know about and this set off a chain of events that eventually lead her to tracking down her sister Hong.
Juliet, Jen, Hong and Hong’s husband pose together at Hong’s home in Bac Lieu.
I was immediately captivated by the backstory and I wanted to be involved. Yasmin who comes from a background in animation had been funding the film herself and to keep costs down we decided that I would work alone recording all of footage and audio for the trip to Vietnam.
Prior to learning about Hong Yasmin had already recorded a ton of interviews back in the US with Juliet and she plans to use animation to bring to life parts of the backstory.
Yasmin’s animation depicting Juliet, her mother Tien and her father Russel.
Yasmin and her friend Dai who translated for us flew in to Ho Chi Minh a day early so that we could be at the airport with Hong as she waited nervously to be reunited with Juliet and Jen. The anticipation grew as Juliet and Jen’s plane landed and they started to send messages to each other. Then the moment came and Hong ran towards the international exit gates to embrace Juliet and Jen as tears rolled down the faces of all three sisters.
A frame grab as Juliet embraces Hong as they are reunited at international arrivals, Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Ho Chi MInh City, Vietnam.
The next morning we visited an uncle and aunt living in Ho Chi Minh City and the girls spent their time flicking through old photo albums to discover a treasure trove of old memories from Juliet’s time as a baby and of their mother Tien.
The following day we headed to Hong’s home town of Bac Lieu in the Mekong Delta and during our time there we visited Hong’s home and we also travelled to Hong’s uncle’s home who raised Hong when she was left behind. It was during this time that Juliet and Jen would learn of the difficulties of Hong’s childhood and learn that Hong had also been the victim of abuse as a child. It was an incredibly emotional trip which culminated with an interview with Hong which we did away from the ears of relatives where Hong was able to tell her own uncensored story.
A frame grab of Jen as she comforts Hong after her interview.
The sisters would then return to Ho Chi Minh City and over the next two days Juliet and Jen would reflect on their reunion Hong during interview sessions and also expand on their childhood, their history of abuse, their time in foster care and the steps that lead them to reunite with each other in the US and then with Hong.
Behind the scenes as I mic up Jen for her interview.
They would finish their trip by spending a morning with street boys from the Green Bamboo Shelter that has helped over 600 children escape from life on the streets and from circumstances including parental imprisonment, abandonment and abuse. We also visited the Hoa Binh Peach Village which is is part of Tu Du Obstetric and Gynaecological Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City and since it was founded in 1990 it has been the home of some 400 children, most of them suffering from the effects of Agent Orange which was the deadly chemical sprayed to defoliate forests by the American during the war. Both trips were arranged by my good friend photographer Quinn Ryan Mattingly who has worked on personal projects and volunteered a huge amount of his time to support the children from these organisations.
After such an intensive time together it was time for Jen and Juliet to return home and the goodbyes were heart wrenching. Jen flew out early in the morning and then Juliet and Yasmin departed late that evening leaving Hong and I to travel back to the hotel that she had shared with her sisters. The silence in the taxi on the way home was deafening as Hong was left behind again.
A frame grab from the footage that I captured as Hong and I departed the airport and returned to the hotel that she had shared with her sisters during their time in Ho Chi Minh City.
For me it was incredible experience and I absolutely loved being a fly on the wall during such an important moment in the lives of Juliet, Jen and Hong. We had mics on as many characters as we could for much of the week and I really enjoyed filming and being able to monitor the audio live and respond visually as the sisters experienced the emotive highs and lows during their time together. Whilst I was not able to understand or communicate directly with Hong I also relished the challenge that the language barrier presented and I was really happy with how I was able to respond visually to her body language and emotions.
Perhaps though nothing sums it up better than the post that I made on Instagram on our return from Bac Lieu.
It’s been almost 7 years since I made that post and my feelings about this story haven’t changed. It remains the most satisfying experience of my career. The story isn’t finished though and it has been on hiatus for years due to funding issues and then Covid. Yasmin has recently received some grant funding though which has allowed her to start filming in the US again to capture footage of Juliet and Jen in their daily lives. Yasmin continues to pitch the film to funders and last month she launched a kickstarter campaign to help raise funds to complete the film by April 2025 which will be the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. The campaign is still live and as of today has reached its initial goal of $25,000 which will allow Yasmin and her team to complete the first rough cut of the film.
It’s just a starting point though so if you are able to contribute even a small amount it would be very much appreciated and hopefully I’ll be able to visit Hong and continue filming her side of the story as we work towards the films completion.