We to Me is a documentary film about Vietnam and how their culture of community (we) is being challenged by individualism (me). As the United States leaves Saigon in 1975, North and South Vietnam are united by Vietnam’s Communist Party, based in the northern city of Hanoi. Although the Americans have left, other wars with Cambodia and China take center stage. To accommodate the needs of new conflicts, recover from the American war, and to encourage equality under communism, the party installs the national policy of Bao Cap, which means Subsidy Period. From 1975 to the late 1980s, the Communist Party directly controls agricultural policy and the distribution of food, goods and services through rationing and subsidies. Hunger and famine are widespread and the policy ultimately fails. Today’s Vietnamese youth cannot relate to the Bao Cap era and they struggle to comprehend the lifestyle their parents endured. In this episode, we learn how the younger generation is trying to connect with the past and how the generation of Vietnamese born during the American war finds that unnerving.

Directed by Jade Chase (USA)