Hidden Warriors: Women on the Ho Chi Minh Trail (Documentary Film: March 29th)

(Extra credit opportunity for my students)


For Immediate Release: Hidden Warriors

Lexington, Ky. (February 5, 2007)

A documentary film, Hidden Warriors: Women on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, will screen in downtown Lexington on March 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre, 214 East Main Street.

Hidden Warriors features North Vietnamese women, who defended the strategic Ho Chi Minh Trail after 1965, telling war stories never before heard by American audiences. Interviews with women veterans and rare archival footage reveal how women’s service and leadership tipped the balance between victory and defeat in the “American War.” The documentary follows these unrecognized soldiers today—with their lingering illness and personal tragedy. Film critic for New York’s WBAI radio, Prairie Miller, calls it “an epic yet profoundly personal documentary that unravels the scars we left behind in Vietnam.”

Produced by Phan Thanh Hao and Karen Turner, Hidden Warriors (2003, 46 min.) is based on their book Even the Women Must Fight: Memories of War from North Vietnam (Wiley, 1998) which Cynthia Enloe, author of Maneuvers: the International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives, considers “enthralling” and “a genuine eye-opener” that “will change our understanding of the Vietnam War—and of Vietnam today.”

Director Karen Turner, who is also a professor of Vietnamese and Chinese history at Holy Cross, will introduce her documentary and, following the screening, will discuss her film with the audience and talk about her recent trip to Vietnam.

Hidden Warriors is part of a film series organized each year by the University of Kentucky’s Gender and Women’s Studies Program. This special screening is co-sponsored by One World Films and the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice as well as UK’s Asia Center, Office of International Affairs, Patterson School of Diplomacy, and the Departments of Anthropology, Geography, History, and Sociology. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. For more information, contact Kate Black at 859-257-4207 or at kate.black@uky.edu.