POUSSIÈRES D’EMPIRE, l’histoire taboue des métisses d’Indochine

The conquest of territories was also a conquest of bodies. At least 200,000 children were born during the French presence in Indochina—the result of fleeting encounters, some romantic, many commercial, between French soldiers and Indochinese women. Their numbers surged during the war. Between 1946 and 1954, mainland France welcomed by the thousands those nicknamed « the soldiers’ little sins ». Many of these children were torn from their mothers and their homeland to be raised in France at the cost of forced acculturation. This involved the systematic separation of siblings, the banning of the Vietnamese language, imposed religious conversion, and training to meet an idealized French norm. Ashes of Empire, the forgotten children of Indochina reveals this long-silenced history through the voices of those who lived it. Supported by rare archives and deeply moving testimonies, the film brings to light the lasting scars left by these displaced lives.