ABSTRACT
A suite of unexamined historical documentaries exposes colonial non-dits (what is left unsaid) of Vietnamese indentured labour in New Caledonia and France from the late 1900s to World War II. They build memorial structures connecting subjects in contemporary Vietnam with forgotten sites of trauma. Les hommes des 3 Ky (The Men of the 3 Ky) attaches memories of lính thợ (working soldiers) to French penal sites; Công binh, la longue nuit indochinoise (Indentured Workers: The Long Indochinese Night), set in Vietnam, artistically re-enacts French indenture. Chân Đăng, Vietnamese workers in New Caledonia, are memorialised in Ký Sự Tân Đảo (The Vanuatu Chronicles) and Biết Đâu Nguồn Cội (The Roots), which render cemeteries touristic discovery sites and anticolonial places of memory, respectively.
