A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES DATE: TUESDAY, MAY 4 TIME: 7:00 PM VENUE: NCPD BUY TICKETS

A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES
(United States, 2009) Dir.: S. Leo Chiang
Video, 68 min., color, documentary

New Orleans East is home to a tight-knit and flourishing community of Vietnamese Americans that first emerged when a group of Vietnamese refugees were resettled there in 1975. Today, this community still thrives even stronger than ever, but it wasn’t without a fight that this was achieved. A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES tells the empowering story of a community determined to keep their home, one subject to the Chef Menteur Landfill issued by New Orleans Governor Ray Nagin, post-Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To be placed less than two miles from Versailles for the disposal of toxic debris from Hurricane Katrina, Chef Menteur Landfill would have created an unfit living environment for the future of Versailles residents, potentially leading it to the obliteration of the community they worked so hard to build from the ground up. Plans to rebuild what Hurricane Katrina had destroyed in Versailles were shattered as the prospects of a vile landfill constructed on the very soil they lived on grew larger every day, threatening the very place many Vietnamese Americans in Versailles called home for so long. Chef Menteur Landfill appeared too looming, daunting, and large for the Vietnamese-American residents in Versailles to handle and control.

But that ultimately didn’t stop Versailles residents from fighting for the city that was theirs from the beginning. For the first time, a significant and prominent Vietnamese presence was not only created, but highlighted, in New Orleans as residents protested en masse at public hearings. A strong Vietnamese fight took place as Vietnamese Americans across the country flew in to New Orleans to aid and support fellow Vietnamese Americans protest against the passing of the landfill. Old and young fought side by side. Legal battles were issued at both the state and federal level. And after months of facing near rejection, this unique community is finally heard when Mayor Nagin shuts down Chef Menteur Landfill. Aside from providing the awareness that there indeed is an Asian community in New Orleans, A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES demonstrates just the kind of power a community can have even in the midst of subjugation to a higher and seemingly stronger hand. A definite jewel of a documentary, this victorious piece reflects the accomplishments founded by a Vietnamese community in a village called Versailles.
— Dara Kim

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COMMUNITY CO-PRESENTERS: Asian Pacific American Bar Association; Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association; IDA