Abstract

These Yellow Stars of Ours is an experimental documentary that traces the intertwined histories of Thaun and Nam Nguyen as they flee war-torn Vietnam, fall in love, and build a life in Western New York. Through their accounts and those of their two sons, the film explores the complexities of generational trauma and the ongoing experience of bicultural straddling—the negotiation between inherited Vietnamese identity and the shaping influence of an American upbringing. The project examines how trauma, memory, and cultural displacement circulate across generations, shaping identity in both visible and invisible ways. Methodologically, the film is structured around the conceptual metaphor of preparing a bowl of phở, using the act of cooking as a framework for deconstructing and reconstructing the filmmaker’s relationship with his parent’s history. Each narrative thread functions as an “ingredient,” allowing the filmmaker to compartmentalize and examine distinct components of the family’s story. This metaphor becomes the foundation for a multidisciplinary visual methodology that includes kinestasis, rotoscoping, video collage using found footage, and replacement animation. Drawing from an extensive archive of home movies and family photographs, these techniques serve as experimental tools for interrogating how memory can be manipulated, layered, and re-contextualized. The sonic methodology similarly reinforces the film’s thematic concerns. Beyond interviews, the ebb and flow of the narrative is supported by a textured soundscape built from recordings of the filmmaker’s homemade guzheng and nautical sound effects—an auditory gesture toward the perilous ocean journeys undertaken by Vietnamese refugees. The combination of visual and sonic experimentation reflects the fragmented, nonlinear nature of inherited history: memories that do not originate with the inheritor yet profoundly structure his sense of self. Through these methods, These Yellow Stars of Ours investigates how personal, familial, and cultural histories converge, collide, and ultimately shape the future of a diasporic family.

Publication Date

12-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Film and Animation (MFA)

Department, Program, or Center

Film and Animation, School of

College

College of Art and Design

Advisor

Christine Banna

Advisor/Committee Member

Linda Moroney

Advisor/Committee Member

Vanessa Sweet

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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