Documentary Film Screening: Indochina, Traces of a Mother (with English subtitles)

Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film tells the story of African colonial soldiers fighting for the French in Indochina. Between 1946 and 1954, over 60,000 African soldiers were enlisted by the French (often involuntarily) to fight the Viet Minh. Little known is also that children born of marriages between these soldiers and Vietnamese women were shipped back to Africa by the colonial army after the war, never again to see their mothers. Mora Kpaï poetically relays the stories of some of these African veterans and children, including that of Christophe, who now in his adulthood grapples to come to terms with his past and identity.

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Documentary Film Screening: Indochina, Traces of a Mother (with English subtitles)
Followed by a Discussion with Director Idrissou Mora Kpaï

Co-sponsored by the Dept. of French of NYU

Idrissou Mora-Kpaï was born in Benin in 1967. He has lived in Algeria, Germany and France. In his first documentary film, Si-Gueriki, la reine-mère (2002), Idrissou Mora-Kpaï returns to Benin and his family after an absence of ten years. This journey provides an opportunity to discover his mother, who, having inherited the royal mantle of her husband, is now a figure of authority and denounces the patriarchal system. Arlit: Deuxieme Paris (2004) is a case study in environmental racism set in a uranium mining town in the Sahara desert of Niger.

Abstract:  Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film tells the story of African colonial soldiers fighting for the French in Indochina. Between 1946 and 1954, over 60,000 African soldiers were enlisted by the French (often involuntarily) to fight the Viet Minh. Little known is also that children born of marriages between these soldiers and Vietnamese women were shipped back to Africa by the colonial army after the war, never again to see their mothers. Mora Kpaï poetically relays the stories of some of these African veterans and children, including that of Christophe, who now in his adulthood grapples to come to terms with his past and identity.

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