It takes a lot to wow film critics and audiences at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. But apparently, a new independent film about Vietnamese American refugees is doing just that, recently receiving rave reviews among the film festival attendees::

Director Hàm Tran’s “Journey from the Fall” got it first test before a non-Vietnamese audience at the Sundance Film Festival, passing with flying colors. . . . The plight of the post-war Vietnamese was not lost on the crowd. As the screening ended, the audience stood to give the movie a standing ovation.

Producer Lâm Nguyen, 30, was taken by surprise. “I was astounded. Usually audiences at film festivals, especially an A-list festival like Sundance, are very jaded. You will get applause, but to get a standing ovation? That was incredible,” he said. . . . Now, to have the buzz generated at Sundance to transfer to another important audience: distributors.

As the article describes, the film chronicles the struggles of a South Vietnamese family split up by the fall of Sài Gòn and each side’s desperate journey to reunite with the other. The article also notes that when the screening was over, there was hardly a dry eye left in the theater, with emotions overflowing among Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese alike.

I’ve since learned that the film will air at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival on March 23 at 7pm at the March Palace of Fine Arts theater at 3301 Lyon Street, San Francisco.

Big props to Lâm Nguyen, Hàm Tran, and everybody associated with this film. If you’re in SF soon, make sure to check it out. I also hope that the film finds a distributor because I personally cannot wait to see it.