Film screening and Q&A with director Naja Pham Lockwood and panelists; building community and healing through food with Bay Area Vietnamese chefs and restaurateurs.

Join us for a film screening of On Healing Land, Birds Perch, a documentary by Naja Pham Lockwood, a Vietnamese-born filmmaker, which explores the continuing aftershocks of the Vietnam War from the perspectives of both sides of the war: North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese, including Vietnamese Americans alive today. The story is told through the iconic Pulitzer-Prize-winning photo by Associated Press photojournalist Eddie Adams of South Vietnamese General Loan executing Viet Cong Captain Lem two days after the 1968 Tet Offensive.

Interviewees include the daughter of General Loan, the children of Captain Lem, and the son of the family who was allegedly killed by Captain Lem and his men. All share the intense emotions this photo continues to elicit and the impact it has had on their lives. The interviewees hold widely differing views, but the film poignantly portrays what they all have in common: the lasting trauma from the war.

The Commonwealth Club of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

Organizer: George Hammond  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices