''Sad Song of Yellow Skin'' is a 1970 direct cinema-style documentary, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, on the effects of the Vietnam War on

street children Street children are poor or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids or street child; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policym ...

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Production

Michael Rubbo had originally gone to Vietnam with the goal of making a documentary about the work of Foster Parents Plan with Vietnamese war orphans. Once there, when confronted with the enormity of what was taking place, he felt a film about this humanitarian operation was missing the real story. Rubbo's NFB producer, Tom Daly, supported him in his efforts to rethink the film. Rubbo met the film's through Dick Hughes, a young American who offered his apartment as a safe haven for street kids. Hughes was part of a group of American student journalists who adopted a New Journalism approach to covering the war—a highly personal and involved approach that would influence Rubbo's style in making this film. This group of young journalists included John Steinbeck IV. Rubbo recorded his own subjective observations in a diary and developed the idea for what would be the first of his

self-reflexive Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philos ...

documentaries with the NFB. In ''Sad Song of Yellow Skin'', Rubbo often comments on his own actions within the film, expressing his doubts, fears and concerns, reminding the viewer they are watching a film and not an objective representation of reality. The film had a budget of $72,484.

Awards

* 24th British Academy Film Awards, London: BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, 1971 *

Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venice Film Fest ...

, Melbourne: Silver Boomerang, Best Film, 1971 * HEMISFILM, San Antonio TX: Best Film, 1971 * Festival of World Television, Los Angeles: Best Documentary, 1971 * American Film and Video Festival, New York: Blue Ribbon * American Film and Video Festival, New York: Emily Award *

22nd Canadian Film Awards The 22nd Canadian Film Awards were held on October 3, 1970 to honour achievements in Canadian film.Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrating 50 Years of the Canadian Film Awards''. Stoddart Publishing, 2000. . pp. 89-91. The ceremo ...

: Toronto: Special Award for Reportage, 1970 * Atlanta Film Festival: Gold Medal, Special Jury Award, 1971

References

Works cited

External links

* * {{BAFTA Award for Best Documentary 1970 films 1970 documentary films Films directed by Michael Rubbo National Film Board of Canada documentaries Documentary films about the Vietnam War Self-reflexive films Canadian Screen Award-winning films BAFTA winners (films) Documentary films about street children Films produced by Tom Daly 1970s Canadian films