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Hearts of Freedom | CMU Film Screening comments and Q&A
The Hearts of Freedom (HOF) is a national community project that collects and preserves the personal histories of refugees from Southeast Asia—Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—who came to Canada between 1975 and 1985 and the Canadians who assisted them. The refugee oral histories were completed with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Department of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the DeFehr Foundation. One of the initial outcomes was the creation of a documentary film, Passage to Freedom (producer: Sheila Petzold), that features powerful oral histories of Southeast Asian refugees that made the dangerous journeys to Canada.
The film effectively weaves archival clips of news stories, wartime footage, and interviews with former refugees and Canadian immigration officials. Canada resettled over 210,000 Southeast Asian refugees from 1975 to 1997, making it the longest and largest resettlement of non-European refugees to Canada. The Canadian response to the refugee crisis was recognized internationally with the UNHCR Nansen Medal in 1986. The 50-minute film delves into the journey of the refugees' integration into the fabric of Canadian life and highlights the contributions of this first generation and their descendants. The film screenings are part of the museum exhibition, HOF—Stories of Southeast Asian Refugees (creator and curator: Stephanie Phetsamay Stobbe), that is traveling across Canada to provincial and national museums, the Senate of Canada, universities, and other venues. The tour is funded in part by SSHRC and private donors.
This event took place at Canadian Mennonite University on March 3, 2024, in celebration of the 45th anniversary of Mennonite Central Committee Canada signing the first Master Agreement on March 5, 1979 to privately sponsor Southeast Asian Refugees.
Researchers: Peter Duschinsky, Colleen Lundy, Michael Molloy, Allan Moscovitch, and Stephanie P. Stobbe
Exhibition Creator and Curator: Stephanie Phetsamay Stobbe
For more information on the project, visit the HOF website heartsoffreedom.org.
For information on the traveling and online exhibitions, visit heartsoffreedom.org/online-exhibition.
The film is available through our distributor mcintyre.ca.
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