Indochine

Credits

Name: Indochine

Country: Benin

Year of publication: 2011

Format: Digital

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 71 Minuten

Direction: Mora Kpai, Idrissou

Camera: Besse, Jacques

Editing: Molla, Rodolphe

Abstract

From 1946 to 1954, France recruited 60,000 African soldiers for its war against the independence movement Viet Minh in the French colony of Indochina. This is why in the first phase of the Vietnam war there were people from the colonies fighting on both sides. The African soldiers also had relationships with Vietnamese women out of which many children were born. When the French colonial army was forced to withdraw from Vietnam after its defeat in Dien Bien Puh in 1954, the officers ordered all black children to be taken with them leaving their distraught mothers behind in Vietnam. When they arrived in West Africa some of the children stayed with their fathers, while orphans were given up for adoption to officers' families. This was the case of the film's protagonist Christophe. With documentary filmmaker Mora Kpai he returned to Vietnam 50 years on in search of his mother.