From ‘The Stringer’ to ‘Move Ya Body,’ BIPOC Filmmakers Share the Untold Legacy of Their Communities in Sundance 2025 Documentaries

variety.com:

Shayeza Walid The documentary selection at this year’s Sundance celebrates the work of multiple BIPOC filmmakers shedding light on untold narratives of both celebrated and unduly neglected figures from their communities. “For a long time, people from the global South, those who are historically underrepresented, have been telling stories about themselves in their own circles.

But they haven’t had the opportunity to share it with the world” says Vietnamese-American director Bao Nguyen, whose revelatory documentary “The Stringer,” a last-minute selection, is having its world premiere at this year’s festival.

Nguyen’s documentary follows the investigation into finding a man only known as “the stringer,” who was responsible for the indelible photograph of a Vietnamese girl running down a road on fire taken during the Vietnam War.

In the film, as the journalists relentlessly work to track down the man, a decade’s worth of secrets and injustice carried out in foreign reporting are unraveled to ultimately give the photographer his rightful recognition. “A someone who grew up hearing about the war from my parents I felt a responsibility and a privilege to be able to share this story to the world,” says Nguyen.