Thursday, January 22, 1998
Friends to Thien
FILM: The murder of UCLA graduate Thien Minh Ly prompted an
outpouring of community support and a film, ‘Letters to Thien,’
that documents the emotion
surrounding his life and the crime
By Vanessa VanderZanden
Daily Bruin Staff
Our eyes roam across the brutally graphic details of front page
headlines so often that we forget the victims involved even have
names. Desensitized by these images and stories, it can be
difficult to find time in our lives or space in our hearts to care.
But this time, the victim was one of our own.
"When you say the word ‘hate crime,’ I think it’s a very
overwhelming term," explains Kerry Seed, assistant director of
"Letters to Thien," a documentary which has its California premiere
tonight at 7 p.m. in Moore 100. "So, our goal, with this project,
with ‘Letters to Thien,’ was to boil this down to something that
was not so overwhelming. Something that you could focus on. The
life of Thien. Who he was. What is missing in the world as a result
of Thien being missing."
Thien Minh Ly, a UCLA graduate who double majored in English and
biology, died of stab wounds and head injuries two years ago Jan.
28.
Friend Anna Tran helped to organize a candlelight vigil just
after Ly’s death and will repeat the ceremony tonight after the
screening.
"The hope for the vigil is that UCLA can embrace it for hate
crimes generally," Tran explains. "For the first year, we wanted to
pay tribute to him. This is the big premiere because everyone
involved with the film, everyone who wrote a letter, everyone who
knew Thien, is going to be there."
Though the film has already been shown in Portland, Ore., and
Missoula, Mont., its California debut will bring the tale full
circle.
Ly’s death occurred at an Orange County playground. California’s
capital punishment stipulation for hate crime perpetrators landed
one of Ly’s two murderers on death row. The other is serving a
sentence of 25 years to life.
"We organized the vigil just to get the media out there," says
Tran, whose efforts helped to stiffen the murderers’ punishments.
"Another friend of ours sent out this random e-mail about
encouraging people to write to the city of Tustin and the district
attorney’s office to get them to prosecute it as a hate crime."
A film student at Cornell, Trac Minh Vu, who started the film,
got a hold of the e-mail and was so moved by it that he wanted to
try and work out "how to do a documentary about the guy who
died."
Director Vu and high school friends Kerry Seed and Michael
Yesenofski found the subject matter too outrageous to simply
ignore. The three college students began working immediately on the
film.
"I think Trac really got into it because of the similarities of
it to his own life," Seed explains. "Thien was from a refugee
immigrant family from Vietnam and he had three siblings and he was
the first of the family to go to college and on and on. They both
found themselves mediating with the older generation, the parents,
and the younger, more Americanized generation, the siblings. So he
began to really want to do this. He started talking to me about it,
and we both got really fired up."
Although the three collaborators were geographically separated,
the filming of "Letters to Thien" would not be stopped. Seed
attended the University of Montana as a creative writing student,
Vu was at Cornell and composer Yesenofski took music classes in the
three’s hometown at the University of Portland, Ore.
But the friends took two trips to Southern California, once over
Christmas break and once over spring, to shoot footage while tying
up loose ends using plenty of e-mail and Fed-Ex. The 55-minute
piece required 10 shooting days and 30 hours of tape, with 15
individuals interviewed in all.
"We originally told them that writing down their thoughts in a
personal letter to Thien might be a good way to prepare for the
interview," Seed explains. "And then, having them read the letters
and whatnot. They were so powerful, that they really became a
thread running through the documentary that holds it all
together."
Edited in New York due to a deal Vu got on a studio from a
friend, the three moviemakers finished the work a year and a half
after Ly’s death. Though the friends all work in Portland right now
at part-time jobs, their main emphasis has been to promote their
film. It will play at UC Irvine next week as well as at this year’s
San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
"It’s really consumed me," Seed admits. "Emotionally, it was
really overwhelming. It’s a profound experience, walking into
someone’s house that you’ve never met, making chit-chat, and then
having them tell you the most intimate details of their life. But,
because of their willingness to share themselves with me, and with
all of our audience, I feel more open."
Though the film itself doesn’t attempt to change any aspect of
the trial, it still professes strong goals. The initial thrust
centers around bringing an awareness of the importance of every
individual in society. In this way, Ly’s death transcends the
larger, dehumanizing label of "hate crime victim" and instead
becomes a very tragic, personal loss.
"Sometimes, when something affects you so personally, you don’t
have the strength to pick up the pieces yourself," Tran describes.
"So Trac, Kerry and Mike were there for us."
FILM: "Letters to Thien" screens tonight at 7 p.m. in Moore
100.
Photos courtesy of Trac Minh Vu
Kerry Seed (left) and Trac Minh Vu co-produced "Letters to
Thien," a film about the hate crime that killed Thien Minh Ly, a
UCLA graduate.
Thien Minh Ly was rollerblading at Tustin High School when he
was stabbed to death in a hate crime.
???
Thien’s sister, Thu Ly and mother Dao Huynh.