This World

Psychic Vietnam (2006x7)

Air date: May 18, 2006

Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, some families still searching for loved ones missing in action are turning to psychics for help. Millions died in the Vietnam War and 400,000 of them have never been found. But some families of the missing have found new hope in the form of a group of psychics. Accepted, if not approved of, by the government, these psychics believe they can talk to the dead. In 1996, they set up a centre devoted to the research of psychic phenomena. One man who works at the research centre is 37-year-old Nguyen Phac Bay and is said to have found over 500 bodies last year. The film also follows one female psychic through minefields and jungles in search of the dead. Nam Ngia, an ex-army nurse, works alone and has devoted her life to the task of finding those who went missing during the war. Apparently, when she is said to be speaking to the lost spirits, they pass on details that shock the living relatives - details they swear no one else could know. It may seem unlikely, but in Vietnam and much of South East Asia many believe that contact with dead ancestors is normal - that the dead can connect to the living. This film raises the question of what is belief and what is hope when so many are mourning the missing from the Vietnam War.