Child of Dust

Sang is one of thousands of Vietnamese children born to American soldiers and local women, who still live with the legacy of a war that left them to raise children as single mothers among chaos and the ruins of war. Now an adult, Sang sets out to find the father he has never met. Child of Dust avoids the sentimentality often found in films about broken family ties. Instead, Weronika Mliczewska’s documentary offers a quiet, contemplative look at the consequences of relationships forged in violence and occupation. It steers clear of easy judgments, focusing instead on the emotions and motivations of those now living on opposite sides of the ocean. For Sang, the father figure is central to his identity, shaped by local tradition, while for the American veteran, memories of Vietnam remain a source of deep trauma. This clash of perspectives raises difficult questions about the need for connection, the weight of generational trauma, and the injustice of history written by empires. Mliczewska’s film is also a moving portrait of a man without a clear identity, neither Vietnamese nor American, confronting the long shadow of a war that was never his.