Ba's Book Takes Family Memoir From Toronto to London
A daughter's search for her father's past is heading to London.
Ba's Book, written and directed by Ashley Da-Lê Duong, will have its international premiere at the 70th BFI London Film Festival after its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, with screenings set for Oct. 8 and 9, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The answer became a film.
The film grew out of a memoir by Duong's father, Anh Duong. His book, Dear Da-Lê: A Father's Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution, was published in 2024, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Anh Duong spent his childhood near Huế, Vietnam. He escaped the Vietnam War, then lived as a refugee during the revolution in Iran in the 1970s before arriving in Canada in 1980.
His daughter, a documentary filmmaker, built Ba's Book as a direct response to that memoir. The film follows Ashley Duong as she pieces together family secrets tied to the Vietnam War and to a childhood shaped by revolutionary Iran, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It is a hybrid, a term for a film that mixes real-life footage with staged scenes. Ba's Book combines vérité documentary, meaning unscripted filming that observes life as it happens, with re-enactments performed by family members in Vietnam and by actors, alongside travelogue passages that follow the journey between places.
Behind the camera, the credits list Ashley Duong as writer, director and producer, with Ina Fichman as lead producer through Intuitive Pictures and Da-Lê Films, according to the filmmaker's site. That small producing team carried a story filmed across continents and generations.
In London, the film is listed in the Documentary Competition section, according to BFI. The festival's 70th edition runs special events from Oct. 7 to 18.
Duong discussed the making of the film with THR ahead of the London screenings. The Hollywood Reporter had earlier published an exclusive clip from Ba's Book ahead of its Toronto premiere, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
What makes this stand out is the chain. A book written by a father. A film answered by a daughter. Two festivals in a row will now decide how widely that family history travels.
