ON HEALING LAND, BIRDS PERCH revisits one of the most iconic Pulitzer Prize–winning photographs of the Vietnam War to uncover the untold stories behind it. Through intimate testimonies from survivors on both sides, the film traces the war’s lingering aftershocks, the harrowing journeys of refugees becoming new Americans, and the urgent parallels to today’s displaced communities — offering a profound meditation on memory, resilience, and belonging.

Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, one image still defines how we remember it: the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner during the Tet Offensive. Reproduced and debated for decades, it has become an icon of America’s most divisive war. But that single, frozen frame cannot hold the full story. This film steps beyond that frame. It brings together, for the first time, four people whose lives were forever shaped by the moment that photograph was captured: a child refugee who saw his entire family massacred and, against all odds who became the first Vietnamese American Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy; the daughter of General Loan, who built a life in America while carrying her family’s vilified legacy; and the two children of the executed Vietcong soldier, whose father’s death became a symbol far larger than his life.

Together, these four voices form a triangle—a meeting of perspectives from opposite sides of a single event. The film creates a space where all three stories can breathe, revealing the complexity of trauma, survival, and, ultimately, healing. This is a film about the Vietnam War. It is a film about America—its promise, its reckoning, and its capacity for renewal. More info.