In the documentary “The General,” Laura Brickman is not simply directing a film: she is presenting a case study of contemporary power, a state’s security apparatus that can extend its influence far beyond national borders.
The interview that follows captures the core of her project with clarity: telling the story of Việt Nam not as an economic or diplomatic showcase, like we are used to reading about, but as a political system capable of repressing, intimidating, and surveilling. and, according to testimonies featured in the film, targeting dissidents even abroad.
The director speaks like someone who has worked in the field through reporting, documentation, and editing, moving through the country and its echoes during screenings in Europe, Thailand, the United States, and their diaspora communities.
The result is a film that moves between investigation, testimony, memory, and political indictment. A film born, in her words, from the urgency of reconnecting what is often kept separate: human rights and trade, foreign policy and domestic repression, and formal democracy and authoritarian practices.
The Vietnamese: Why did you choose to tell this story about Việt Nam, and why now?
Laura Brickman: I started working on this story in 2019, when I was in Việt Nam for a few months reporting for a big newspaper. From there I began witnessing censorship firsthand, and I realized there was a much larger story behind what I was observing.
It wasn’t just about isolated incidents or single arrests; it was about a system. A system that uses repressive laws, security apparatuses, political pressure, and intimidation to control not only what happens inside the country but also what happens outside it.
The idea for the film also comes from my background and personal trajectory. I’ve worked extensively in post-Soviet and former communist countries, and I studied in Prague.
That shaped my sensitivity toward repression under totalitarian systems, toward restrictions on free expression and toward how power attempts to reshape reality. In Việt Nam, I recognized many parallels with European communist systems of the past, particularly in the state’s ability to use the language of national security to justify political control.
The timing is crucial.
In recent years, and especially since around 2016, repression in Việt Nam has intensified. Laws against “anti-state activity,” “espionage,” or “threats to national security” have become tools for imprisoning activists, journalists, environmental defenders, and political dissidents.
At the same time, however, the country has strengthened its diplomatic and commercial relations with the West. And this is where the film’s central political contradiction emerges: how can European and Western governments continue treating Việt Nam as a reliable partner without addressing the issue of human rights?
For me, the film emerges from this contradiction. I didn’t want to make a simple documentary about dissent. I wanted to show the mechanism: how domestic repression works, how it is exported abroad, how it is supported by trade, and how the West often prefers not to see it because economic convenience and strategic interests make silence easier than confrontation. The film is designed precisely to break that silence.
Q: The film has been screened across the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. What kind of reactions have you encountered, and what do they reveal about Việt Nam’s place in the international debate today?
A: The first screenings took place in Washington; then in Australia, which was almost like a public premiere; and later in several European cities such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Brussels, London, Hamburg, Oslo, Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris.
We also screened the film in Thailand, the Netherlands, and Slovakia. Each context reacted slightly differently, but what stood out everywhere is that the film opened a discussion that usually does not exist: transnational repression.
In Europe, for instance, there is a strong divide between countries more accustomed to defending freedom of expression and others where sensitivity to these issues is less developed.
Even the annual Reporters Without Borders index reflects this disparity: there are parts of the continent where press freedom is a central concern and others where it remains more peripheral. In that sense, the film found a more receptive audience mainly in cities and institutions more open to political engagement.
The most important moment was Brussels. There, the film was not received merely as a cinematic work but as a political instrument. The fact that members of the European Parliament-supported screenings show that the documentary did not remain confined to the artistic sphere; it entered the debate on EU–Việt Nam relations. And for me, that is essential. When a film becomes part of an institutional conversation, it means it has touched a sensitive nerve.
In Slovakia, reactions were also very strong, but in a more complex environment. The film was presented at a festival organized by anti-corruption groups, and the connection to the Ján Kuciak assassination case was immediate. In a country still shaped by that trauma, speaking about repression, corruption, and impunity means touching an open wound.
Overall, the film has received an overwhelmingly positive response among the Vietnamese diaspora. Many people left Việt Nam because of their experience with the government, so they recognize in the documentary a reality they already know.
The situation is different inside Việt Nam, where distribution is far more sensitive. The film is not yet available online, and we are still considering how to make it accessible without compromising the safety of those involved. But interest is strong. Many viewers ask: why does this film provoke such a strong reaction from the state of Việt Nam? And that is precisely the question we wanted to raise.
Q: As Việt Nam has upgraded its diplomatic relationships with many Western countries, including the EU, do you hope the movie will, in any way, contribute to the human rights dialogue between Việt Nam and these countries? Will it improve the international community’s understanding of the real Vietnam?
A: Yes, this is very much one of the goals of the film. When a country like Việt Nam strengthens its relationships with the European Union, individual European states, the United States, and other Western democracies, human rights should not become a secondary issue.
On the contrary, they should be central to the relationship. When trade and economic cooperation are built without moral conditions, a system emerges in which repression can continue without consequence.
I genuinely hope the film can help change the way international public opinion looks at Việt Nam. The country is too often perceived only as an emerging market, a productive partner, or a convenient manufacturing hub.
But behind those low prices are often extremely high human costs: people evicted from their land without adequate compensation, weak environmental regulations, almost nonexistent independent labor representation, political control over resources, and wealth concentration in the hands of those in power.
The film attempts to connect these elements. It does not only say, “Look at what happens to activists.” It also asks, “Who pays the price of the economic model that makes this country so attractive?” And this is not only a European issue; it is global. Việt Nam has become a strategic node in a global order where many governments are willing to look away if trade continues to flow.
Europe, in particular, carries a responsibility. If the EU maintains strict standards internally, it cannot abandon them when signing trade agreements with countries where repression is systemic.
This does not mean isolating Việt Nam or cutting ties. It means making human rights a substantive part of the relationship, not a symbolic appendix. If political prisoners, press freedom, and pluralism are not genuinely included in negotiations, then the message sent to Hà Nội is simple: silence is cheaper than reform.
The film is therefore not just about presenting an alternative image of “the real Việt Nam” against an official narrative. It is about showing that the “real Việt Nam” is made of contradictions: control and resistance, fear and courage, diaspora and displacement.
And if Europe understands this, it would be a meaningful step forward, because international understanding is shaped not only by diplomatic statements but also by the ability to hear the voices power tries to silence.
Q: What kinds of pressure or intimidation occurred during production and screenings, and what do they reveal about the regime’s sensitivity toward the film?
A: We faced several forms of pressure. At many screenings, individuals linked to embassies attempted to attend events, including in Europe.
However, in Thailand, the pressure was particularly intense. We were told the film could not be screened because it had not been approved by the Thai Ministry of Culture. But this argument was weak, because the screening was not commercial; it was a private event without profit.
Despite that, Thai police arrived at the venue, and we had to deal with the situation on the ground. In the end, with legal support, we were able to proceed. But the presence of officials clearly sent to apply pressure shows how politically sensitive the film is perceived to be.
There were also letters from the Vietnamese government sent to venues claiming copyright violations. These were clearly pretextual claims, especially since archival footage in the film is used for critique and public-interest analysis. It is a classic form of bureaucratic intimidation: not a direct political attack, but a strategy to make screenings more difficult, risky, and burdensome.
The most serious issue, however, concerns the individuals involved in the film. Some live in Germany, others in the Netherlands or Thailand. Some are protected by German police, but their safety is not guaranteed if they travel. In Thailand, especially, individuals without stable legal status remain extremely vulnerable to surveillance, pressure, or deportation.
One of the most painful dilemmas is that visibility, which should offer protection, can sometimes have the opposite effect. A participant who initially supported the film later requested that screenings be paused until their resettlement is secured. From a human perspective, this is understandable. From a journalistic perspective, however, it raises extremely difficult ethical questions: does telling a story expose people to greater harm than silence would?
This is not theoretical. It is precisely what transnational repression looks like in practice: embassies, security services, administrative procedures, legal threats, and fear operating together as a system.
Q: What should international and Vietnamese audiences take away from the film?
A: The most important message is that human rights and economic relations are not separate. Trade cannot be treated as a neutral technical space while freedom and repression are relegated to moral abstraction. In reality, they are deeply connected. Supply chains, low prices, and investment flows all have political consequences.
The film asks audiences to consider the real cost of this model. Why are goods from Việt Nam so competitive? What does that competitiveness actually mean? Who bears the cost? When you look closely, you see that the cost is mainly political. It includes forced displacement, lack of environmental safeguards, imprisoned journalists, criminalized activists, and a system that concentrates power and benefits in a narrow elite.
For Vietnamese diaspora audiences, I hope the film provides a shared language for fragmented experiences: arrest, censorship, exile, and fear. The film cannot resolve these experiences, but it can connect them and make them visible as part of a larger structure.
For international audiences, the film should act as a mirror. It is not enough to react to individual cases of repression. We must ask what enables them and why Western governments continue to treat Việt Nam as a success story without fully accounting for the political consequences of their economic choices.
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The General is not only a film about Việt Nam and its president. It is a film about how authoritarian systems adapt to globalization, how repression crosses borders, and how democracies risk compromising their principles when economic interests dominate. It is also, however, a film about the possibility, still present, of telling these stories with courage.
If there is one conclusion Laura Brickman returns to, it is this: human rights cannot be conditional. If they are universal in principle, they must be universal in practice. Otherwise, they are not principles at all; they are privileges.
