ÁCCENTED: Bao Nguyen in Conversation With Viet Thanh Nguyen

EVENT DETAILS

Thursday, December 18, 2025 • 8:00 PM PT / 11:00 PM ET

This event is FREE. Please register in advance to receive a link to join the virtual conversation.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Bao Nguyen is an Emmy- and Grammy-nominated Vietnamese American filmmaker whose work explores the space between memory and myth. His films have been seen on Netflix, HBO, ESPN, and The New York Times, and have been official selections at prestigious film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, SXSW, Berlinale, and Busan, among many others.

He directed Be Water, a lyrical portrait of Bruce Lee that competed at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and became the most-watched ESPN 30 for 30 film on the platform ever, earning an Emmy nomination. His film The Greatest Night in Pop, about the recording of “We Are the World,” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and debuted as the #1 English-language film on Netflix in its opening week. It received three Primetime Emmy nominations, four Critics Choice Documentary nominations, and a Grammy nomination, and won both the Critics Choice Award and the PGA Award for Best Documentary. His most recent work, The Stringer (Sundance 2025), reshaped the historical record around one of the Vietnam War’s most iconic images, centering overlooked Vietnamese voices. It premieres on Netflix on November 28th.

A partner at EAST Films, he produced ROM (winner of the top prize at the 2019 Busan International Film Festival), Maika (Sundance 2021), and executive produced the upcoming Picturehouse. He is a Gold House A100 honoree and a 2022 BAFTA US Breakthrough artist. He was also recently invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Born to Vietnamese refugee parents and raised in the United States, Bao’s work is shaped by heritage, displacement, and belonging. He earned his BA in politics and international relations at NYU and his MFA in film at the School of Visual Arts. He is represented by CAA and managed by Mosaic.

ABOUT THE HOST

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his son, Ellison. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, he is also the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, and the forthcoming children’s book Simone illustrated by Minnie Phan.

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ABOUT DVAN

The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) is dedicated to moving the voices and stories of the Vietnamese diaspora from the margins to the center. For over 20 years, DVAN has uplifted diasporic writers and artists through community events, writing residencies, and publishing opportunities, ensuring their perspectives reshape and expand the broader cultural narrative.

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ABOUT ÁCCENTED

ÁCCENTED is DVAN’s acclaimed talk show and podcast, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen and community leader Philip Nguyen. Since launching in 2020, ÁCCENTED has become a global platform for dynamic, thought-provoking conversations that amplify the voices of writers, poets, visual artists, and other cultural producers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora.

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