I'm grateful for every teacher and student who invited Ghost Tape #10 into their classroom or onto their laptop these past several years. I learned so much about my methods and practices as a documentary filmmaker through the dialogues we shared. Now available exclusively through Vimeo On Demand, I hope that my film can help educate those following the footprints of war, and where those secret paths lead.
Special thanks to Ca Dao "Cookie" Duong, the Nguyễn Family and the guidance of my USC MVA mentors & professors Jenny Cool & Janet Hoskins.
Ghost Tape #10 from Sean David Christensen on Vimeo.
About the film: Created by the U.S. Army during the American War in Vietnam, "Ghost Tape #10" was one of many audio tapes engineered to psychologically terrify the North Vietnamese Army in its depiction of wandering souls lost in the Buddhist afterlife. By re-examining this weaponization of religious belief, reflections on this artifact of American propaganda lead to meditations on relationships between the living and the dead, asking what truths, if any, still echo within this recording.
Lauded as "...a haunting portrayal of U.S. militarism" by General Anthropology, this award-winning documentary by Sean David Christensen excavates these disturbing secrets of war through a dreamlike narrative that author David Biggs calls "Fascinating...considers elegiac currents through which people in Vietnam continue to reckon with war's ghosts."