Coco Means Ghost

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  • Coco Means Ghost

  • Artist: Gabi Dao
  • Year: 2019
  • Duration: 25:24
  • Country: Canada
  • Coco Means Ghost is an experimental documentary rooted in Dao’s research along the Mekong Delta and her own family’s history between cultures.  The eponymous narrator (a ghost in the form of a coconut) resists a singular place and time, moving freely, if not lightly, through personal photographs, contemporary commentary and archival material.  Other characters appear – Lan, Ong Nam, Mr. Le, Quang, An, Nguyen and Dung–and together they tell the fragmented story of Ong Dao Dua (‘Mr.Coconut’), a monk who founded a small, self-sustaining, anti-war community in the late 1960s-70’s on Con Phung, an island colloquially known to westerners as the “Coconut Kingdom.”  Through the lens of Ong Dao Dua’s oft-mythologized character, the work becomes an avenue to explore and enmesh broader notions of memory, nationhood, belief, belonging and dreams for the future.

  • Accession #: 7111
  • Distribution Status: In Distribution
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