Opening Night Presentation: BA’S BOOK

Canada2026103 minEnglish, Vietnamese with English Subtitles Documentary, Experimental

Filmmaker Ashley Duong had always wondered about her father’s story of escaping Vietnam and then the revolution in Iran, eventually finding his way to Canada. Unable to get answers, she made multiple trips to Vietnam, until to her surprise her father sent her an entire memoir of his experiences, forming the book Dear Da Lê. Duong responded to the book with more questions — and this remarkable documentary, Ba’s Book.

Duong and her reluctant father venture to Vietnam to meet with family to re-enact and challenge scenes from his memoir, revealing past joys and scars while giving voice to those he left behind. These are essential intergenerational conversations, approached with tenderness, humour, and care, but also rigorous determination. Not merely a family travelogue, Ba’s Book inventively uses film as a form to reimagine the lives of family members from multiple perspectives, to give windows to the past, and to find peace for the future. Ba’s Book stands alongside other great Canadian documentaries like Stories We Tell (2012), but for people from the diaspora, whose families have been ruptured and displaced by war. It is an extraordinary achievement in family and filmmaking.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier