Dust of Life
Synopsis
Son , the child of a black American officer, and his Vietnamese mother are trying to leave Vietnam. But without American documents, they are forced to stay. On coming home from school one day, Son is picked up by the Bô-doï (Vietnamese soldiers) who arrest the children roaming the streets of Saigon. Orphans, shoeshine boys or delinquents, they are the "dust-specks of life" of a decomposing world. Packed into 2 trucks, eighty children are ferried to the "rehabilitation camps". There, they are forced to work on clearance and have to submit to the order and ethics of the revoluion. All escape attempts end in the "tiger cage" before the departure for "Fanta Hill", whose terrible secret Son will come to understand. With Bob and little Haï, he decides to risk an escape attempt and build a raft to sail down the river to the Mekong and from there to Saigon, the sea and perhaps even... the USA.
Credits
Director (1)
Production and distribution (5)
- Executive Producer : 3B Productions
- Co-productions : Arte France Cinéma, Hamster Productions
- Foreign production companies : Salons Films Ltd., Paradise Films, TV München - TMG, IVP
- Film exports/foreign sales : Pyramide International
- French distribution : Swift
Full credits (16)
- Executive Producers : Jean Bréhat, Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bigot
- Screenwriters : Bernard Gesbert, Rachid Bouchareb
- Director of Photography : Youcef Sahraoui
- Music Composer : Safy Boutella
- Editor : Hélène Ducret
- Sound Recordist : Didier Saïn
- Costume designer : Simonetta Mariano
- Foreign Producer : Charles Wang
- Author of original work : Duyên Anh
- Line Producer : Charles Wang
- Camera Operator : François Paumard
- Press Attachés (film) : Thierry Lenouvel, Isabelle Buron
- Assistant Editor : strAtos
- Production Designer : Iskandar
- Sound Mixer : Thierry Sabatier
- Still Photographer : Roger Arpajou
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Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Fiction
- Sub-genre : Drama
- Themes : Childhood
- Production language : French, Vietnamese
- Coproducer countries : France, Hong Kong, Algeria, Germany, Belgium
- Original French-language productions : Unspecified
- Nationality : Majority French (France, Hong Kong, Algeria, Germany, Belgium)
- Production year : 1994
- French release : 18/01/1995
- Runtime : 1 h 27 min
- Current status : Released
- Visa number : 80.423
- Visa issue date : 09/01/1995
- Approval : Yes
- Production formats : 35mm
- Color type : Color
- Aspect ratio : CinemaScope
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News & awards
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About
"Vietnam and the USA have tried to forget these children, these "dust-specks of life" as they were called in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. These children, with their half-breed faces, are too vivid a reminder of the war. Having found another Franco-Vietnamese director concerned by the same issues, we decided to work together on the adaptation of Duyên Anh's novel "La Colline de Fanta". Shooting this film for me was a continuation of the subject matter that I tackled in "Cheb", my previous film : the blending of races and cultures."
(Rachid Bouchareb)
