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| Showtimes | Wed March 17 6:00 PM / KAB317A |
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USA, 1998, 72 mins, 35 mm,
color /b&w, English & Vietnamese w/e.s.
Director/Writer Barbara SONNEBORN (in person); Producers/Exec. Prods. Barbara SONNEBORN, Janet COLE; Editors Lucy Massie PHENIX, Ken SCHNEIDER; Co-Producer Ron GREENBERG; Cinematographers Emiko OMORI, Nancy SCHIESARI, Daniel REEVES; Translator Xuan Ngoc EVANS; Music Todd BOEKELHEIDE
Fresh from its world premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, this groundbreaking
film portrays the devastation of the Vietnam War through the eyes of women,
both American and Vietnamese, who lost their husbands. Intensely personal
yet universal in scope, REGRET TO INFORM tells of love cut short and of
war’s lasting effects on the people left in its wake.
Twenty years after her husband Jeff was killed in Vietnam, director Barbara Sonneborn embarked on a journey through the country where he fought and died. Interwoven with the record of her personal odyssey are remarkably honest interviews with widows from both sides of the conflict, who speak openly about the men they loved and about how war changed their lives forever. Accompanying Sonneborn on her journey through Vietnam is Xuan Ngoc Evans, a South Vietnamese widow. Evans, like the other widows in the film, illuminates the horrors of war for those who have only imagined what it was like in Vietnam.
Ten years in the making, REGRET TO INFORM is a quiet, yet moving film. What initially began as a letter from Sonneborn to her late husband has evolved finally into a poignant, powerful statement on the personal toll of war.
—Sandra Yoshizuka
The viewer is taken on an exceptionally well-crafted journey, which includes beautiful camerawork and a seamless mixture of new and archival footage. Deeply personal and vastly universal, REGRET TO INFORM is an involving and moving lesson about the painful legacy of war.
—Lisa Viola, 1999 Sundance Film Festival
Presented with Film Arts Foundation and KQED