Director's Statement

Today, World Press Photo, one of the most respected institutions in photojournalism, made an extraordinary decision: it has suspended the attribution of the iconic “Napalm Girl” photograph. This action follows an independent investigation conducted by forensic analysts and media experts. Their findings conclude that, based on the available visual and technical evidence, Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, a long-overlooked Vietnamese stringer, appears more likely than Nick Út to have taken the photo.

This renewed examination was prompted, in part, by the evidence presented in THE STRINGER, an investigative documentary I directed in close collaboration with a team of journalists and film crew, many of whom are Vietnamese. This recognition is deeply meaningful to all of us involved. But above all, it represents a critical first step in acknowledging the man we believe is the rightful photographer: Nguyễn Thành Nghệ. We hope the world will come to know and say his name.

THE STRINGER is not a film about Nick Út or the Associated Press. It is a story about truth, memory, and the quiet burden of a man who carried a secret for over fifty years, and the family who carried it with him. While one man was celebrated globally for a photograph that shaped the world’s understanding of the Vietnam War, another lived in silence.

Since our Sundance premiere in 2025, the film has sparked international conversation and inquiry. While we welcome open debate, the facts we present stand on firm ground, supported by testimony, documentation, and now by the findings of an independent third-party review.

The turning point in this story began with Carl Robinson, a former AP photo editor, who made the decision in 1972 to credit the photograph to Nick Út. As he shares in our film, he knew at the time that it may not have been accurate, and he has been haunted by that choice ever since. His desire to set the record straight became the catalyst for a long-overdue reexamination of the image’s provenance.

This film is also about power – who gets to be seen, who is believed, and who gets to write history. Nghệ was a trained military photographer with years of experience, including time in Washington, D.C. But as a “stringer,” he lacked the institutional support and protection afforded to foreign press agencies. That disparity shaped not only his fate, but the historical record itself.

I’ve long carried the legacy of the war in fragments, through the silence of my parents, who lived near the 17th parallel during the war, and through the images of conflict that played endlessly on our television and in cinema, projected onto the walls of our memory whether we invited them or not. But alongside the sorrow was something else, something rarely acknowledged: the capacity of Vietnamese people not only to endure, but to speak. To witness. To create the very images that have shaped how history is remembered. Yet even when people like my parents and my community were central to the story, we were often invisible. As a Vietnamese American filmmaker, I grew up watching the war play out through narratives created by others. The failure to center Vietnamese voices, then and now, is part of the very silence this film hopes to challenge.

It is notable that the Associated Press did not interview Trần Văn Thân, Nguyễn Thành Nghệ’s brother-in-law and an NBC soundman who was on the scene. This omission, like others, reflects a broader pattern — one in which the voices of Vietnamese people have often been excluded from telling their own stories.

From the start, our intention was simple: to share the perspectives of Nghệ, his daughter Jannie, and his brother-in-law Thân — three people who held onto a piece of history with quiet resilience. To hear them now, and to share their story with care, is the heart of what THE STRINGER set out to do.

The emotional truths in this story — the grief of a man whose work was never recognized, the regret of another who wishes he had spoken up sooner — are impossible to ignore. THE STRINGER does not rewrite history. It fills in what was left out.

Today’s announcement by World Press Photo signals a turning point. It affirms the need to look again at the stories we thought we knew. And it marks a step toward giving Nguyễn Thành Nghệ the recognition he has long deserved.

As Trần Văn Thân says in the film:

“There is nothing more important than the truth. When the truth is disregarded, that’s when society becomes corrupted.”

Bao Nguyen,
Director, THE STRINGER

FIND OUT MORE →
Long lines for water and flour are made by women of refugee families. © Ebrahim Alipoor / VII Mentor Program.
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Captured South Vietnamese soldiers sit on the lawn after North Vietnamese troops seized the presidential palace in Saigon, South Vietnam, on April 30, 1975. Photo by Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images.
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© Ali Arkady / VII.

our mission

The VII Foundation is committed to in-depth journalism covering the crucial issues of our time. In a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities, our response is to ensure the truth is documented to enable communities worldwide to make evidence-based choices about the challenges impacting their lives.

The foundation does this by empowering new voices through education, especially from under-resourced regions where press freedom is limited and journalists are vulnerable. We train practitioners to cover their local communities and global problems, and we produce large-scale and long-term documentary projects that advocate change and detail solutions. We bring new and neglected perspectives to the public agenda and host conversations that campaign for a diverse, safe and viable profession, especially for freelancers worldwide. 

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upcoming event
One of the countless crossings that the Koolbars have to pass by carrying items weighing more than 50 kilos in long distances. These passages are one of the main causes of the death of Koolbars. They usually leave late at night to cross the border early in the morning. Kurdistan, Iran, June 2019. © Ebrahim Alipoor.
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Jun
05
2025

VII Community Presents: Winning Stories from the World Press Photo Contest

We are joined by two VII Community members to discuss their recent World Press Photo award-winning projects. Ebrahim Alipoor will present his project "Bullets Have No Borders," and Tatsiana Chypsanava will discuss "Te Urewera — The Living Ancestor of Tūhoe People."
upcoming event
Asylum seekers from 11 different countries at the US/Mexico border, near San Luis, Arizona on Feb 8, 2024. © Ashley Gilbertson / VII.
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Jun
07
2025

USA 3.0 at Photoville Festival

“U.S.A 3.0” is a visual journalism project that captures and interprets American history in real-time, marking this historical period and preserving a record of the past, present, and near future for generations to come.
upcoming event
Shaheeda, Sabira, and Kammo, landless laborers on a nearby farm, recall the 1998 nuclear test, which occurred 5 kilometers from Chacha village in Pokhran, India, as seen on Oct. 25, 2023. Engrossed in their daily chores, they were preparing food at home when the event unfolded. © Chinky Shukla.
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Jun
13
2025

Square Mile at the 2025 Sarajevo Photography Festival

Square Mile, an initiative by VII Community in collaboration with PhotoWings, will be featured at this year's Sarajevo Photography Festival, which runs from June 9 to June 15, 2025.
upcoming event
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Jun
15
2025

THE STRINGER at DC/DOX Festival

THE STRINGER has been officially selected for the DC/DOX Festival. Tickets are now available for the screening, followed by a discussion with the THE STRINGER team.
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Jun
19
2025

THE STRINGER at Sheffield DocFest

THE STRINGER, directed by Bao Nguyen, has been nominated for the Tim Hetherington Award at the 2025 Sheffield DocFest, where it will have its international premiere.
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Chongqing IV (Sunday Picnic), Chongqing Municipality, 2006. © Nadav Kander.
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Jul
07
2025

Nadav Kander: What is it that you pursue? 

You’re invited to the keynote address, “What is it that you pursue?”, by Nadav Kander at The VII Foundation Arles on Monday, July 7, 2025, at 1600 CEST. The presentation is part of an exciting lineup of events held at our headquarters in France to coincide with the opening week of Les Rencontres d’Arles.
upcoming event
Contact sheet of black and white photographs taken by Roland Neveu in Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, as Khmer Rouge forces enter the city. The two circled frames show: 1) Inside the French Embassy, a high-ranking French diplomat in shorts speaks with foreign residents at the gate after Khmer Rouge ordered foreigners to seek shelter there. 2) On the boulevard across from the embassy, people — likely staff from the nearby Calmette hospital — pull a cart loaded with patients to evacuate the city as ordered by Khmer Rouge. Photo by Roland Neveu.
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Jul
08
2025

April 1975 , Phnom Penh – Saigon 

Opening on July 8, 2025, at The VII Foundation Arles  "April 1975, Phnom Penh – Saigon" is an exhibition that examines the lives and work of the journalists who covered the end of the wars in Cambodia and Vietnam in April 1975. We invite you to join us at 18:00 CEST to view the exhibition, followed by a chance to share a drink afterward.

PIERRE & ALEXANDRA BOULAT AWARD


Ludmilla, 89 years old, takes the air in front of the door of her building, riddled with shrapnel holes from the shells that have fallen over the last two years in her yard. Siversk, Donbass, Ukraine. 23 November 2023. © Gaëlle Girbes Winner of the 2024 Pierre & Alexandra Boulat award, sponsored by LaScam.
Ludmilla, 89 years old, takes the air in front of the door of her building, riddled with shrapnel holes from the shells that have fallen over the last two years in her yard. Siversk, Donbass, Ukraine. 23 November 2023. © Gaëlle Girbes Winner of the 2024 Pierre & Alexandra Boulat award, sponsored by LaScam.
APPLY NOW: PIERRE & ALEXANDRA BOULAT AWARD →
The 2025 Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Award, created by The Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Association and sponsored by LaScam, is currently open for applications. This prestigious award offers a prize of €8,000 and is aimed at professional photographers whose work effectively explores and highlights important social, economic, political, or cultural issues.

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Journalists document delegates from Pennsylvania casting their votes during the roll call of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro cast the state’s Democratic delegates for Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. © Danny Wilcox Frazier / VII.
Journalists document delegates from Pennsylvania casting their votes during the roll call of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro cast the state’s Democratic delegates for Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. © Danny Wilcox Frazier / VII.
USA 3.0 →
The VII Foundation, Daily Iowan Documentary Workshop, and University of Iowa SJMC present USA 3.0, a project that culminates in a book available now for pre-order.
Children from the Teepa family drive the younger siblings home, after a swim in the river. Tūhoe children are taught independence and to care for other family members. Ruatoki, New Zealand, 27 January 2022. © Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic.
Children from the Teepa family drive the younger siblings home, after a swim in the river. Tūhoe children are taught independence and to care for other family members. Ruatoki, New Zealand, 27 January 2022. © Tatsiana Chypsanava, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic.
World Press Photo Contest 2025 →
We're thrilled to celebrate the incredible talent within our alumni and VII Community, as several members have been recognized in this year's World Press Photo Contest.
The Story Behind The Photo: A Tribute to Paul Lowe →
Our friends at Sniper Alley Photo have released a deeply moving new episode of "The Story Behind The Photo," dedicated to the late VII contributing photographer Paul Lowe (1963 to 2024).
The mobile clinic vans, operated by Alliance for Public Health and sponsored by the Global Fund, arrive at a village in the war-hit Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Dec. 14, 2024. Photo by Oleksandr Rupeta / The VII Foundation for The Global Fund.
The mobile clinic vans, operated by Alliance for Public Health and sponsored by the Global Fund, arrive at a village in the war-hit Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Dec. 14, 2024. Photo by Oleksandr Rupeta / The VII Foundation for The Global Fund.
The Global Fund →
The VII Foundation, commissioned by The Global Fund, documented the heroic efforts of frontline medical teams in Ukraine. Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Rupeta, a 2023-24 VII Mentor Program alumnus, was assigned to capture the work of mobile healthcare teams delivering lifesaving care in war-torn regions.

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A NEW STRUCTURE →
All our work is now united under the same unifying brand — The VII Foundation — and categorized into three areas: Educate, for all training and education; Report, for all storytelling; and Campaign, for all advocacy and dialogue about a free press, media rights, AI and more.
A NEW LOGO →
Our new logo has been completely redesigned by Mechanica Design Director Wade Devers to anchor our rebrand. In the inspiring recording linked here, Wade narrates his process in reimagining our logo, which combines historical references with principles of design.

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