In the shadows of the American Dream, a Vietnamese mother and her son navigate love, sacrifice, and the weight of unspoken promises.

In 1990s America, a pregnant Vietnamese immigrant mother delivers newspapers at dawn, helped by her young son Binh, who promises to one day care for her. Years later, facing assimilation’s difficulty—racism, displacement, gang life—Binh fights to keep that vow. Fatally wounded and on the run, he calls her, reliving their memories in his final breaths. Through ultimate sacrifice, he fulfills his promise. A touching portrait of immigrant love and the American Dream’s hidden costs.

Directed by Vu Hoang, Newspapers expands this intimate story into a broader reflection on identity, loyalty, and the weight of expectation carried by first-generation families. Through shifting moments of memory and present-day desperation, the film captures the emotional distance that can grow between generations navigating the promises and pitfalls of the American Dream. Grounded in heartfelt performances and quiet, reflective storytelling, Newspapers becomes a moving tribute to the sacrifices made in pursuit of opportunity—and the enduring bond between a mother and her son.

The film touches on the immigrant experience in 1990s America — balancing hope, sacrifice, and the reality of assimilation. How did you approach portraying that complexity without simplifying it?

I approached the story by focusing on authenticity. I came to the U.S. as a Vietnamese immigrant toddler in the early 90s, so much of the emotional foundation comes from memories and experiences I witnessed growing up. I also drew from conversations with family and friends who lived similar journeys. My brothers, cousins, and close friends shared many similar experiences, and their stories helped shape the characters and key moments.
Rather than trying to explain the entire immigrant experience in such a small amount of time, I focused on a single family and one specific moment in their lives. Staying grounded in something personal and intimate allows the complexity of hope, sacrifice, and the realities of assimilation to emerge naturally without needing to spell everything out.

Binh’s promise to care for his mother becomes the emotional anchor of the film. How did you build that bond on screen so that it carries weight across time?

Parent-child relationships are incredibly universal. If you strip the film down to its skeleton, it’s really about a mother and son trying to navigate life together in a new country.

A lot of the emotional weight came from the actors. Cát Ly and David Vi Hoang, our main leads, never actually appear on screen together, but they both spent time deeply understanding the characters’ history and what they meant to each other. They also drew from their own experiences and lives. Cát, being a seasoned actress well-known in the community and a mother herself, brought tremendous authenticity and warmth to her role. David was around 18 or 19 at the time and he had just moved to LA to pursue his acting career and was a bit nervous at first. But through multiple rehearsals and discussions, he connected deeply with the character’s history and pulled from his own relationship with his mom to deliver raw, emotional performances. Cát and David naturally got along so well that their chemistry felt effortless.

On top of that, the child actors were crucial, especially Ethan Ta as young Binh. Ethan was fluent in both Vietnamese and English (which was very hard to find) and completely comfortable on camera, helping ground the early family moments in real cultural texture. That shared understanding across the cast helped the relationship feel truly lived-in, like we’re witnessing just one moment in a much longer story that exists beyond the frame. So it was important the whole cast felt like one family, even if they weren’t all on screen at the same time.

The film moves between past memories and Binh’s final moments. How did you approach structuring those memories so they feel both nostalgic and tragic?

I approached the structure as a poetic, non-linear flow rather than traditional flashbacks. The memories function almost like emotional echoes that surface during Binh’s darkest hour.

The early memories offer small glimpses into his life as a Vietnamese immigrant kid in the early 1990s, quiet moments with his mother and the everyday rhythms of their family life. These nostalgic fragments gradually build emotional context.

As the present closes in, those memories become a source of peace. The ending sequence turns into an emotional crescendo of memory fragments, revealing the full weight of the childhood promise he made. In that moment, past and present merge, reframing the ending so it lands not just as tragic, but deeply bittersweet.

The story also explores how displacement and racism can shape the paths of young immigrants growing up in America. How important was it for you to address those social pressures through Binh’s journey?

It was important to address those pressures because in the early 1990s, Vietnamese communities in America were still relatively new, and many families were figuring out what it truly meant to belong. That feeling of being caught between cultures is something a lot of immigrant families experience.

At the same time, many immigrant parents work nonstop just to keep a roof over their heads. That can create an emotional distance, even when the love is very strong. Young people in that situation often end up searching for identity and connection outside the home.

Binh’s journey reflects that tension of wanting to honor his family while trying to find his place in a world that doesn’t always fully accept him.

In many ways, it’s similar to universal coming-of-age stories about young people trying to find themselves. The difference here is that this family had to leave their home country after a major war, rebuild their lives from the ground up in a foreign land with a different language, which adds another profound emotional layer to the journey.

There’s a strong sense of the American Dream running through the film — both its promise and its hidden costs. What perspective did you hope audiences would take away from that theme?

I think many immigrants, at least speaking for my own family, genuinely believe in the American Dream. In many ways, we feel like we achieved it. The opportunities here allowed us to build a life we might not have had otherwise.

At the same time, the dream doesn’t mean the journey is easy. Especially for Vietnamese immigrants arriving in the early 90s, everything had to be built from the ground up. Parents were working constantly, families were learning a new culture, and many young people were trying to figure out where they fit in.

What I hope audiences take away is that the American Dream isn’t just about success, it’s also about the sacrifices and struggles that often happen quietly behind the scenes. Those stories aren’t always talked about, but they’re a big part of many immigrant families’ experiences.

Much of the film’s emotional impact comes from quiet moments rather than overt drama. How did you work with your actors to convey that tenderness and history between the characters?

I mentioned earlier that the film is told in a more poetic way. While the script contains plenty of dialogue, I didn’t want it to feel like a short that explains everything through conversation. Instead, we focused on letting the emotions and quiet moments carry the story.

That approach was made possible by having such a great producer in Minnie Nguyen, who gave me the bandwidth to stay focused on the story and creative vision. She also assembled a team that was not only incredibly talented, but genuinely passionate about the project, which created a space where the actors and I could really focus on the performances.

A lot of credit goes to our actors, Cát Ly and David Vi Hoang. Even though they were never on screen together, they both understood the emotional history between the characters and delivered performances that felt grounded, raw, and authentic. The same goes for the child actors, Ethan Ta and DeDe Chang, who brought natural warmth and presence alongside Cát in the earlier scenes.

In post-production, a space I’m very familiar with, we were able to interweave those performances and shape the pacing so the tenderness of their relationship came through naturally. Huge credit to our small post team as well: Barrak Sitty (Editor), Michael Huang (Re-Recording Mixer), Jared DePolo (Composer), and Brian Nguyen (Color/DP). It was truly a collaborative effort in all departments.

When audiences finish Newspapers, what feeling or reflection do you hope stays with them about family, sacrifice, and the immigrant experience?

When audiences finish Newspapers, I hope they walk away feeling the depth behind the American Dream that so many immigrants chase: that behind every opportunity and achievement, there’s a tremendous amount of quiet sacrifice and invisible love holding families together. I want people to reflect on the unspoken promises parents make to their children, and the ones children make in return, and how those bonds endure through hardship.

Most importantly, I hope the film inspires viewers to pick up the phone and call their parents, to really see and appreciate the sacrifices they’ve made. That’s something I learned more deeply as I got older, and even now, as a new father myself, I’m still learning it every day. The film has only deepened that for me.

And if it encourages more people to seek out and tell Vietnamese-American stories, our histories, our families, our quiet resiliences — that would be incredibly meaningful. These narratives deserve more space, because they’re full of the same universal love and struggle that connect us all.

What are the books, podcasts or even YouTube Channel that you recommend young filmmakers get their hands on?

I don’t follow specific channels or podcasts, but off the top of my head these helped me a lot:
Premiere Gal (YouTube) for editing in Premiere.
Scriptnotes podcast for screenwriting insights.
Screenplayed (YouTube/IG) for how to think about scripts.
Film Riot for fun low-budget filmmaking.
Biggest tip: just watch lots of short films, movies, and shows for inspiration, then go make your own stuff with some friends. That’s where it really clicks. Most importantly, just have fun!

Can you share with us some of your favorite short films you’ve seen lately?

Haven’t caught many brand-new shorts lately, but these are some favorites I keep coming back to:
Controller by Saman Kesh – creative sci-fi and action that’s fun and emotional.
Apricot by Ben Briand – emotional, nostalgic first-love story that lingers; it became a bit of inspo for how Newspapers was told.
Russian Roulette (Watch on FS) by Ben Aston – clever, heartfelt take on loneliness and connection. It was done for very cheap and still had maximum impact. The writing and acting really carried this.
Kodama by Brian M. Tang – epic SWAT samurai action with supernatural vibes; a director I personally know and trust me the film is epic af.
Mannequin by Mark Tran – another Viet story by a director I personally know, and it’s an eerie and touching exploration of grief and bonds.