Who Really took the iconic “Napalm Girl” Photo? Director of New Doc Addresses the Controversy (Exclusive)

As the Lights Came on at the Sundance Premiere of the Documentary The stringer Last January, There Was No Doubt for Many Viewers That One Of The Mist Important Photos in the History of Journalism – The Pulitzer Prize – Hinning 1972 Snapshot Titled The Terror of War – HAS BEEN MISATTRIBUTED. In the MONTHS SINCE, THE CONTROVersy Over Who Really Took The Devastating Vietnam War Image Better Known As “Napalm Girl,” WHICH PUT A Heart Anti-War Movement, Has Only Grown, Even Thought The Film Has Not Been Released and No Distributor Has Been Announced.

The Photo Was Taken After A Napalm Attack in the South Vietnamese Village of Trảng Bàn. There Were A Number of Journalists, Cameramen and Photograpphers Positioned on a Road As a Naked Nine-YEAR-ELD GIRL NAMED PAN KIM PAN PHUC FLED The ATTACK WITH OHERS. The Film Uses Archival Footage, Testimonies, Forensic Recreations and Other Means to Investigate Who Really Really Took The Photo.

For the first time, in an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Film’s Director, Bao NGUYEN, Addresses the Controversy Over What Hat Has Happy Since the Intense Night of the Premiere.

The Film Makes A Strong Case That The Photographer Long-Credited with Taking The Photo in 1972, Nick út, A Young Vietnamese Ap Staffer at The Time, Did Nota, MAN IGNES Nguyễn thành nghệ (pronounced “nay”), who was a freelance Photographer, DID.

In the World of Photojournalism, IT Was As Shocking A Conclusion As if Someone Proved that Woodward and Bernstein Did Not DO.

Atendees of the Sundance Premiere of The stringer On Jan. 25 Were surprised to learn after the screening that nghệ HimSelf was in the audience, Frail but Standing Proud, Saying in vietnamese-Accessed English, Simply, “I Took The Photo.”

NGUYEN’S FILM Chronicles the work of investigative Journalists Gary Knight, Fiona Turner, Terri Lichstein and Litch vrew as they tracked down the oregins of the acor.

Thr’s sheri linden praized The stringer‘s restrained structure as “the Stuff of Conrad or Dostoyevsky.”

Yet The stringer HAS BEEN MET WITH SLICE, OR WORSE, CONTEMPT from Many Corners of the Journalism World, with Defenders of út Posting Extensively on Public and Private Social Media. On May 6, Ten, The Associated Press AnnounCed that It Had Completed Its Own Suppedly Thorol Investigation of the Photo’s Attribution. AP Concluded that út Was in A Position to take the Photo and SAID IT Wulder Continue to Credit the Photo to HIM.

On May 16, 10 days laster, the influential amsterdam-Based Foundation World Press Photo Reached A Different Conclusion, Determining that There Was a good chance nghhhhhhhid. Suspend út’s Credit.

Út’s Lawyer James Hornstein, Who Has Called the Film “Defamatory,” Issued A Statement That World Press Photo’s Decision Was “DEPLABLE AND UNPROFESSIONAL” and “REVEALS. Út, NOW 74, HAD A Long Career in Photojournalism and Received Pladits for Decades For The Terror of War.

In the Wake of the Recent AnnounCements, NGUYEN VOWS THAT WAY OR ANOTHER The Film, With New Additions Since Sundance, Will Be Released this Year – and Expressed His Own Surprise. The stringer Has Received in the Journalism Community.

This Interview Was Done The Day The World Press Report Was Released and Has Been Edited for Length and Clarity.

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You’ve been busy.

Bao nguyen: HONESTLY, I DON’T Ever Want to Be The Center of the Story.

WHY DOES The World Press Report Matter?

World Press is One of the Leading Voices in Photojournalism and Their Investigation, As Opped to Ap, Was Independent. AP WAS FROM WHAT I GATER AN INTERNAL INVestigation Looking at a Former Ap Employee, And, I’M Not A Journalist by Any Stretch of the Imagination, But….

Well, that’s not true, but ok.

For me, i’m observing the Truth in a Way, While Gary Knight, One of the Main Subject of Our Film, is Pursuing Truth. There’s that Slight Distinction.

WHEN NGHệ SHOWED UP at the Screening, I Wonderned Who this Guy Wasn’t Getting A Bigger Standing Option. Have you been surprised by all the pushback that you’ve gotten?

We Were Just Happy that nghệ could be there in his frail state. (NGHệ IS IN HIS LATE 80S). I can just tell you from speaking to him, it was a very emotional moment for him and the familia and for him to be definitive in the Q & a and say, “I took the Photo,” which for me. IT IS A UNIQUE Experience Who We’re Bringing on the Subject [of a documentary]. We Were Surpring The Audence, Too. They Didn’T Know HE WAS THERE, AND SO I THINK IT WAS STILL A VERY POWERFUL MOMENT AND I Wuldn’t Change It For the World. As for the debate over the attribution of the photo, weknew that it wasn’t about rely rely on the instructions that have the air -legacy and Historical Record DECADES. IT WASN’T About Waiting for Them To Bestow Something to Me As A Filmmaker. It was about nghệ. Having the CHANCE TO Tell the World His Truth and His Story and His Perspective On Something Happy 53 Years Ago.

To some extent is not really the ap’s story to Tell. In a Way, It Kind of Doesn’t Matter What Say.

For me as a filmmaker, it was always, how do i listen to a story that someone have been telling within his own circles for so loung that would be heard.

Have you been surprised at the Reception Among Journalists?

I’ve been surprised by people’s opinions towards something that haven’t watched, to be honest, Especialyly Among Journalists. I Grew up Near Washington, DC I Always Dreamt of Being A Journalist and I Wrote Briefly for the Nyu Newspaper. I Soon Realized that I am Bad at Deadlines, and So I Realized I Wasn’t the Right Person to Be a Journalist. I Didn’T have that intens Attitude of Going Towards A Story and Getting that News Very Quickly. I Think Filmmaking Fits My More Reflective Information On Life and Storytelling. And, yeah, it surprised me that there was the so Many Journalists who i’ve respected over Decades that were angry that we asked the quest – or that garyste. Whther Nick út Was The Person Who Took The Photograph.

I Always Felt that Journalists Were in the Pursuit of Truth. They’re Not Necessarily the Arbitrators of Truth. But to ask the quest, I Think, is a key pillar of journalism, and so that surprised me – and again it surprised me that people who have some kinded. But You Know, to Be Fair Too, A Lot of People Who Were Adamant About Nick Being The Author Are Close Friends of Nick or Know Nick. HAVING A RELATIONSHIP WITH Someone Over Decades, You Willd Trust Someone, Right? I mean, you buy that trust. I TRY TO EMPATHIZE AND HUMANIA THAT PERSPECTIVE AS WELL. But I was surprised by the reaction from Many Journalists in that World.

The Other That thing you don’t see in the news reports but you do see in the film is that nghệ was probably the best trained photographer on the scene that day, and if you had to pick who Good Candidate.

WHEN I Learned that in the Process of Making the Film, It Definitely Made me More Firmly Believe that nghệ was the one who took the Photography.

Is there any doubt in your mind whoto took it?

I DON’T Ever Try to Speak in Absolutes. I Truly do believe nghệ is the one who took the Photograph.

A Lawyer’s Job is to Defend Their Client, But What do You Think of Nick Út‘S LAWYER’S QUESTIONING OF THE DOCUMENTARY PROCESS, QUESTING The Journalism?

I’ve Tried to Stay Away from Those Conversations and Those Debates. I Think There’s Imperfections in the Ap Report, for Example with The Claim That Everyone Who Is Still Alive From That Day Was Interviewed in that Report. Trần vrewn Thân – the NBC Sound Person Who, if You Watch The Film, Was Part of that Cluster of Journalists WHO COULD WHO witnesses to that evult. What’s Interesting from A Filmmaker’s Perspective Too, is that he was a Sound Person, and I Think A Lot of Directors WHO WORK WITH REALLY Good Sound Sound PEOPLE RELAZE HOW MUNTE A Great Sound Person Has to Watch, Has to Look, Has to Obertve. SO HE WAS The MOST, PROBABLY the MOST OBSERVANT Person on that Road, in that group of people. And he said he wit with nghệ tacking the photograph. I Find It Strange That Ap Didn’t Interview Him, Especialy As He Is Also One, if not the ONLY, Living Vietnamese Witness, in Addition to NGHệ, that Could Provey. One of themes of the Film Itelf is that vietnamese voices have been erassed from the Telling of this.

Asked to comment specifically on kinder the ap’s investigation was Done with bias and whok Director of Media Relations and Corporate Communications for The Associated Press, Forwarded ther Statement Issued with the release of the investigation. The Statement Says, In Part: “AP’s Extension Visual Analysis, Interviews WitH Witnesses and Examination of All Available Photos Taken on June 8, 1972, Show Itones Picible. Anyone Else Did. Technology Has Limitations. Reportand An Interactive Feature be included in this article.

HOW have the Fight from Út‘S Friends in Journalism, and The Threatened Legal Action, Made It A Challenge to Find Distribution?

We Are Still in Advanced Negotia for Worldwide Distribution. I Think Actulely The Debate and the Conversation AROUND The FILM MAKES IT more RELEVANT GLOBALLY. I Opens it up to a Udiences to Kind of Make the Decision on Their Own. And I THINK THAT ENGAGES AUDIENCES IN A Much More Complex Way Than Having This Sort of Smoking-Gun, Definitive Answer. I hawen’t be the one at the forefront of the negotias about distribution, but i do through [the debate] Continues to Push the Film Into the Sphere of Conversation. I can’t tell you How Many people have reaured out to me asking to see the Film from around the World. I mean, i Made a Film Called Greatest Night in pop [about the recording of the star-studded single “We Are the World”]. WHEN I MADE THAT FILM, I ALSO DIDNK THAT THAT The song “we are the world” have a global reach, but it did. And this film, The stringerhave an exponentilly larger reach than i had u had ever Imagines with Greatest Night in pop.

WHEN MIGHT PEOPLE BE ABLE TO See It?

We’re in Negotias for Worldwide Distribution, and We Expect To Share the Film This Year with AudienCes AUND The World. For me, no matter what, this film is gonna be shared the around the work of this year because iso’s so Important for me to share nghệ’s. We Got A Message from NGHệ’s’s Daughter Today that nghệ Heard the News from World Press. He is in a frail state, but she shared to US that he felt a little better today. And that means a lot to me as someone who have been entrusted to be the custodian of his story. That gives me a bit of hope.