Continuing this artist's almost cubist approach to documentary truth, Surname Viet Given Name Nam looks at the many faces of culture, "the multiplicity of identity," in this case of Vietnamese women as seen in staged interviews, dance footage, and manipulated archival images. "Of marriage and loyalty: 'Daughter, she obeys the father/ Wife, she obeys her son.' What role do women play in the task of building a new society and of transmitting cultural heritage? The film focuses on aspects of Vietnamese culture as seen through the history of women's resistance in Viet Nam, through oral tradition (folk poetry on the feminine condition), through images promoted by the media, and through the lives and experiences of Vietnamese women. Also involved is a questioning of the strategies inherent to the politics of interview and the problems of translation in filmmaking." (Trinh T. Minh-ha).