The documentaries, Cha Me Xin Loi Con (Baby, We Apologise to You) by Phan Huyen Thu and La Thu Tu Dong Van (The Letter from Dong Van) by veteran film-maker Nguyen Huu Tuan, were selected by the Institute for Vietnamese Culture and Education (IVCE) to “show the real life of modern Vietnamese society to American audiences, including young overseas Vietnamese,” according to IVCE chairman, Tran Thang.

Baby, We Apologise to You is about a poor construction worker, Tong Phuoc Phuc, and a group of charity volunteers who collect aborted fetuses from hospitals and bury them in a small cemetery, which they set up on a hill in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa. The touching 37-minute documentary won a Silver Kite Award and brought Thu the Best Director prize at the Vietnam Golden Kite Film Awards in 2007.

The 23-minute Letter from Dong Van depicts the lives of the Mong ethnic people living on the rocky Dong Van Plateau in northern mountainous Ha Giang Prvince.

The documentaries will be shown at New York University, Wesleyan, Yale, Brown, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, from October 30 to November 11.

Thu, who is both the screenwriter and director of Baby, We Apologise to You, and filmmaker Tuan left for the US on October 27 to hold post-screening discussion groups with US audiences.

Other Vietnamese films, which have been screened in the US thanks to the support of the IVCE, include the 2003 documentary Chuyen Tu Te (A Story of Kindness), by director Tran Van Thuy, as well as Mua Len Trau (The Buffalo Boy), Chuyen Cua Pao (Pao’s Story), Thung Lung Hoang Vang (Deserted Valley), Doi Cat (Sand’s Life), Me Thao-Thoi Vang Bong (Glorious Time in Me Thao Hamlet), Vua Bai Rac (King of the Rubbish Dump) and Cua Roi (Dropped item).