Asian Film Festival of Dallas 2009 - ‘Story of Spirits’

In Vietnam, legend has it that a person who dies far from home will wander the earth forever until they are commemorated…until their story is told. THE STORY OF SPIRITS documents Tien Nguyen's escape from Vietnam with her father and her three siblings while her mother and unborn sister stayed behind following the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Thirty years after her disappearance, a mother's ghost returns, channeled through her husband's new wife. This sudden appearance however, leads her daughter to question her lifelong belief that her mother abandoned her children. As her questions turn to doubt, the daughter embarks on a journey to shatter years of family deception and silence. She traces the path of a woman that she has never known, from their wealthy life in Saigon, to 1975 when the family fled to America without her mother, to her mysterious disappearance at sea, and finally, to her father's struggle living with the ghost of his dead wife. Using in-depth interviews with her family in California, Michigan, New Jersey and ultimately Vietnam, she is able to piece together one story, but several conclusions.

Information from the festival's website