The Ethics of Telling Someone Else's Story

One of the most persistent questions I have encountered during the making of The Long Dress has little to do with cameras, cinematography, or editing. It is an ethical question.

What gives a filmmaker the right to tell another person's story?

When I first began this project, I assumed authenticity depended primarily on research. If I read enough history, interviewed enough people, and travelled to the places that mattered, perhaps I could tell the story responsibly. Over time, I realised that knowledge alone is insufficient. Documentary filmmaking is the negotiation of relationships.

Every interview begins with consent, but ethical practice extends far beyond a signed release form. It requires continuous attention to trust, vulnerability, representation, and power. The camera inevitably alters the social space into which it is introduced. Every documentary constructs an argument through countless creative decisions: where the camera is positioned, which questions are asked, whose voices are prioritised, and which moments remain absent. Objectivity, therefore, is less a destination than an aspiration towards intellectual honesty.

This understanding has changed the way I approach every interview.

Visual anthropologist David MacDougall describes the documentary as an encounter between filmmaker and participant. Rather than imagining the filmmaker as an invisible observer, he suggests that meaning emerges through the relationship itself. I have found this perspective both reassuring and demanding. It reminds me that my presence is never neutral. My background, my questions, my assumptions, and even my silence shape the stories that eventually appear on screen.
This raises another question that has become increasingly important throughout the production of The Long Dress.

Can anyone ever truly tell another person's story?

Documentary filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha offers a compelling challenge to conventional documentary practice through her proposition of "speaking nearby" rather than "speaking about." Rather than claiming authority over another person's experience, she advocates remaining attentive to its complexity and resisting the temptation to produce definitive interpretations. Her work has encouraged me to think of documentary not as an act of explanation but as an invitation to dialogue.

This resonates deeply with the people I have met throughout the production. No two participants understand the áo dài in the same way. For one designer, it represents innovation. For an artisan, it embodies generations of inherited knowledge. For members of the Vietnamese diaspora, it may evoke memory, displacement, celebration, or belonging. These interpretations do not compete with one another. They coexist.

Film scholar Stella Bruzzi argues that documentaries should be understood as performative acts in which meaning is continually negotiated rather than objective mirrors of reality. This perspective has made me more comfortable acknowledging my own position within the film. I am not standing outside the story. I am a Vietnamese filmmaker whose own experiences inevitably shape the questions I ask and the connections I recognise.

Recognising subjectivity does not diminish a documentary's credibility. Rather, it demands greater reflexivity.

The ethical challenge, then, is not to eliminate the filmmaker's perspective, a task that is impossible, but to remain accountable for it. Choosing not to include a deeply personal anecdote. Turning off the camera when continuing to film would compromise dignity. Allowing a participant to revise an explanation because clarity matters more than spontaneity. Respecting emotion without transforming it into spectacle. These moments rarely appear in discussions of authorship. Yet they shape the moral character of a documentary as profoundly as any sequence that reaches the final cut.

Perhaps ethical filmmaking begins with recognising that stories are never ours to own. They are entrusted to us.

Our responsibility is not to speak for others, nor to claim authority over their experiences, but to listen carefully, represent thoughtfully, and acknowledge that every documentary remains, ultimately, a conversation rather than a conclusion.