New Theater Professor Van Tran Nguyen’s The Motherload to premiere at Hawai’i Film Festival

Newly appointed Assistant Professor for the Theater and Performance Studies Program, Van Tran Nguyen is a Vietnamese American artist-scholar, filmmaker, curator, and multimedia artist. Her research investigates Asian American performance and media(tions) of the diaspora. Her feature length film The Motherload, releasing in 2025 will premiere at the 44th Hawaii International Film Festival from October 3. Read the full Variety article here.

Synopsis: “Conflict among the mother-daughter duo arises when Jessca embarks on a quest to find a home that once belonged to her mother’s family during pre-war Vietnam. Kim (Jessca’s mother), happy in her new but precarious position in America, fights to stay stateside. As their desires cause them to grow apart they are faced with old myths about the motherland, depicted in a public-broadcasting television show. With a cast consisting only of two Vietnamese-American women re-enacting and satirizing scenes from celebrated Vietnam War films while depicting a diasporic reality, this movie takes a closer look at what has been lost in war, what we find in the rubble, and how to hold on to what remains.”