A Sundance documentary called ‘The Stringer’ disputes who took AP’s ‘napalm girl’ photo in Vietnam

PARK CITY, Utah — After a half-century of public silence, a contract photographer from Vietnam has asserted he took probably the most famend and impactful photographs of the twentieth century — the picture of a unadorned woman fleeing a napalm assault in South Vietnam that has lengthy been credited to a employees photographer from The Related Press.

Nguyen Thanh Nghe claimed authorship of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “napalm girl” photograph within the new documentary “The Stringer” and on the sidelines of its premiere Saturday evening on the Sundance Film Festival in Park Metropolis, Utah.

The AP carried out its personal investigation and mentioned it has no purpose to conclude that anybody aside from the long-credited photographer, Nick Ut, made the image. The information company mentioned it was “stunned and dissatisfied” that filmmakers portrayed it as having reviewed the movie’s supplies and being dismissive. The AP mentioned it noticed the movie for the primary time at Sundance.

Nghe joined the filmmakers for the post-screening Q&A the place he mentioned, by way of a translator, “I took the picture.” The viewers cheered enthusiastically. He didn’t say why he waited so lengthy to make the declare.

The AP mentioned it was calling on the filmmakers to launch their contributors from non-disclosure agreements for the movie, together with Nghe. It additionally referred to as on the filmmakers to share a visible evaluation they commissioned — and the movie itself. “We can’t state extra clearly that The Related Press is barely within the information and a truthful historical past of this iconic picture,” the company mentioned.

Nguyen says he took the long-lasting picture of Kim Phuc on June 8, 1972. Nghe mentioned he went to the city of Trang Bang that day as a driver for an NBC information crew and captured the picture of Phuc working down the road, crying and bare with arms outstretched. He mentioned he offered his picture to the AP for $20, they usually gave him a print of the picture that his spouse later destroyed.

Representatives for the AP, who noticed the movie for the primary time Saturday on the premiere, are contesting the movie’s implication that the corporate reviewed their findings and dismissed them.

“As lately as December, we reiterated our request to see the filmmakers’ full supplies and they didn’t reply, nor did they embrace AP’s full response within the movie,” Lauren Easton, an AP spokesperson, mentioned Sunday. “We have been stunned and dissatisfied that the movie portrayed AP as having reviewed the movie’s supplies and being dismissive of the allegations, which is totally false.”

The movie’s investigation was led by husband-and-wife group of Gary Knight, founding father of the VII Basis, and producer Fiona Turner. Bao Nguyen, a Vietnamese American filmmaker, directed.

“I’m not a journalist by any stretch of the creativeness,” Nguyen mentioned. “I had a wholesome skepticism, as I feel anybody would, going in opposition to a 53-year-old fact. … However as a storyteller and a filmmaker, I believed it was my each or my accountability and my privilege to have the ability to uplift the story of people like Nghe.”

Earlier than having seen the movie, the AP carried out its own investigation over six months and concluded it had “no purpose to consider anybody aside from Ut took the picture.” Now, the AP is asking on the filmmakers to elevate the non-disclosure agreements they positioned on their topics to permit the corporate to research extra absolutely.

“AP stands able to overview any and all proof and new details about this picture,” Easton mentioned.

Knight and Turner met with AP in London final June concerning the allegations. In accordance with the AP, filmmakers requested the information group signal a non-disclosure settlement earlier than they offered their proof. AP wouldn’t. The movie means that proof was offered to the AP, which the AP says just isn’t true.

A major supply within the movie is Carl Robinson, then an AP picture editor in Saigon, who was overruled in his judgment to not use the image by Horst Faas, AP’s Saigon chief of photographs. Robinson says within the movie that Faas instructed him to “make it employees” and credit score Ut for the picture. Each Faas and Yuichi “Jackson” Ishizaki, who developed the movie, are useless. Robinson, 81, was dismissed by the AP in 1978.

On Saturday, a Sundance Institute moderator requested why he needed to come back ahead with the allegations now. “I didn’t need to die earlier than this story got here out,” Robinson informed the viewers after the screening. “I needed to seek out (Nghe) and ask for forgiveness.”

Quite a lot of witnesses interviewed by AP, together with famend correspondents corresponding to Fox Butterfield and Peter Arnett and the picture’s topic herself, Phuc, say they’re sure Ut took the picture.

Robinson was one such particular person the AP tried to talk to throughout their investigation however “have been informed we might solely accomplish that below circumstances” that they mentioned would have prevented them from “taking swift motion if crucial.”

The movie’s investigation took over two years. The journalists enlisted a French forensics group, INDEX, to assist decide the probability of whether or not Ut had been able to take the picture. The forensics group concluded that it was extremely unlikely that Ut might have completed it.

Ut’s legal professional, James Hornstein, had this to say Sunday after the premiere: “In the end, we’ll proceed to proper this flawed in a courtroom the place Nick Ut’s fame shall be vindicated.”

Knight referenced AP’s investigation Saturday, telling the viewers that the corporate’s assertion is obtainable on-line. “They mentioned they’re open all the time to analyzing the reality. And I feel it was a really cheap factor to say,” Knight mentioned. “Our story is right here and it’s right here for you all to see.”

He added: “Issues occur within the discipline within the warmth of the second. … We’re all stronger if we study ourselves, ask robust questions, and we’re open and trustworthy about what goes on in our occupation. Now greater than ever, I’d argue.”

“The Stringer” doesn’t but have distribution plans.

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