Friends of Ho > Overview

During this century, Ho Chi Minh, who was the leader of Vietnam for more than forty years defeating both France and the U.S., emerged as a leader of great personal style and tactical shrewdness. Yet for all Ho’s amazing power, for all the richness of his life and his position as a symbol of the rebellion of the poor colored against the rich Caucasian, curiously little was ever known about him in the West. Ho had the anonymity that is often attached to the persona of an underground figure – staying one step ahead of the police of several nations, changing his name regularly, then returning to Vietnam to lead an underground revolution, this time from the mountains, so that even his wartime acts and decisions were curiously private and secret.

Friends of Ho will explore this anonymity through some of the people who knew Ho. It will seek to shed some light on why he deliberately did not seek the trappings of power and authority, as if he were so sure of himself and his relationship to both history and his people. Friends of Ho will not be a journalistic report about Ho’s life but presents an impressionistic view of him. Surely his friends’ memories of meetings and conversations so long ago will produce contradictions. The film will be about these friends as well. The viewer will gain a special insight into the culture and times that molded this extraordinary individual. We’ve been given unprecedented access to Hanoi’s archives of writings, photographs, recordings, and footage of Ho Chi Minh. Much of Ho’s early environment was full of contrast to the Caucasian in wealth and power, side by side with the impoverished Asian. This type of visual contrast will be used throughout the film so as to create a textured background revealing the times Ho faced.