‘Uncomfortable truths’: controversial film challenges authorship of famous photo

A controversial new documentary that premiered at the Sundance film festival on Saturday night disputes the authorship of one of the most famous press photographs ever taken, challenging 50-plus years of accepted history.

In The Stringer, directed by Bao Nguyen, a group of journalists and investigators claim that the photograph colloquially known as Napalm Girl – an indelible image of American war in Vietnam that galvanized the anti-war movement in the US – was not taken by Nick Ut, the Associated Press staff photographer long ascribed credit by the news group.

Officially titled The Terror of War, the image, taken on 8 June 1972, depicts a naked nine-year-old girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she and several crying, burned children flee a napalm attack in the south Vietnamese village of Trảng Bàng. The AP and Ut have long maintained that Ut, then 21 years old, took the photo, which earned him a Pulitzer prize, photojournalist fame and a distinguished career until his retirement from the AP in 2017.

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But The Stringer presents a different story: that the iconic photograph was actually taken by another photographer on the scene that day: Nguyen Thành Nghe, a Vietnamese driver for NBC who sold his photos to the AP as a freelancer, or “stringer”. The claim originates from Carl Robinson, a former AP photo editor in Saigon, who alleges that Horst Faas, the bureau’s chief of photos at the time, ordered him to change credit for the image and “make it Nick Ut” before sending out a picture that would seen by millions within hours.

In the film, Robinson claims that guilt over the misattribution haunted him for years, and he was compelled at the age of 80 to find the discredited “stringer”. “I didn’t want to die before this story came out,” he said during a Q&A following the film’s premiere in Park City. “I wanted to find him and say sorry.” Robinson first contacted the documentary’s lead investigator and narrator, Gary Knight, with the allegation in 2010. A little over a decade later, Knight, cofounder of VII photo agency, and fellow journalists Fiona Turner, Terri Lichstein, and Lê Vân began investigating the claim, leading them to Nghe, who emigrated to the US and now lives in California. An emotional Nghe then confirms that he took the photo. “I worked hard for it, but that guy got to have it all,” he says in the film.

The Stringer posits that Faas, who is described as complicated, dogmatic and imposing, falsely credited Ut because he was the only AP staff photographer on the ground that day, or because he felt guilt over sending Ut’s older brother, Huynh Thanh My, to his death on combat assignment for the AP in 1965. Knight and other film participants suggest that racism also played role. “I don’t think [the AP] would’ve done that to a western photographer,” Knight says in the film. Faas could get away with alleged misattribution because the Vietnamese – particularly non-employees such as Nghe – were “outsiders in their own country. They knew no one would listen to them.”

The Associated Press, which declined to participate the project, disputed the allegations and maintained Ut’s authorship in a lengthy report released days before The Stringer’s premiere. “For the past six months, aware that a film challenging this historical record was in production, the AP has conducted its own painstaking research, which supports the historical account that Ut was the photographer,” the statement reads. “In the absence of new, convincing evidence to the contrary, the AP has no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.”

The AP asserts that it spoke to seven people on the road in Trảng Bàng or in its Saigon bureau that day who were either not approached by the documentary team or declined to participate due to a requirement that they first sign a non-disclosure agreement. One witness claimed that the documentary team disputed his story and never contacted him again. In a 23-page report, the AP outlined its own research process, including its archive of negatives, oral histories, a visual timeline that “offer[s] little evidence about the provenance of the photo”, eyewitness accounts and the fact that Robinson – described as a “disgruntled” former employee – did not mention the story in his 2019 memoir.

In a statement released Sunday after a representative viewed the film at Sundance, the AP reiterated that the film-makers would not share their full materials unless the group signed an NDA and agreed to an embargo, which the AP viewed as hindering their investigation or ability to correct the record. “We were surprised and disappointed that the film portrayed AP as having reviewed the film’s materials and being dismissive of the allegations, which is completely false,” the statement reads.

The AP “stands ready to review any and all evidence and new information about this photo. To do so, the film-makers would have to lift the restriction they placed on all their contributors who signed non-disclosure agreements,” the statement continues. “We cannot state more clearly that The Associated Press is only interested in the facts and a truthful history of this iconic photo.”

According to the film-makers, Ut did not respond to multiple requests for comment. James Hornstein, an attorney for Ut, told the LA Times that it’s “outrageous that the VII Foundation has provided a platform to a man who clearly has a vendetta that’s been simmering for more than 50 years”.

Hornstein also provided the Times with a statement from Kim Phuc, who does not remember the napalm attack: “I have refused to participate in this outrageous and false attack on Nick Ut raised by Mr. Robinson over the past years … I would never participate in the Gary Knight film because I know it is false.”

The film enlists several witnesses to bolster Nghe’s account that he took the photo and sold it to Faas for $20 and a print: Nghe’s brother, who claims he brought the film to the AP; Nghe’s daughter Jannie; Robinson, who says he felt he had no choice but to go along with the story and experienced great regret; and several of Robinson’s former photojournalist colleagues. The investigators also consult forensic experts with the French NGO Index for their own compelling visual timeline, presented in full to the audience, which finds it “highly unlikely” that Ut took the photo based on the other images AP credited to him that day, and puts Nghe in the right position for the iconic shot.

At the premiere, director Nguyen, Knight and Nghe – a surprise guest, drawing a long, emotional standing ovation – defended the integrity of their investigation and account. “We owed it to everybody to be as diligent as possible and as thorough as possible with the investigation,” said Knight. “Our story is here. It’s here for you all to see, it’s here for AP to see and everybody else.”

“Thank you so much for coming to see the film. I took the photo,” said Nghe through a translator. “I can’t express how I feel after this, I just want to say thank you.”

Nguyen, the self-described emotional custodian to the investigators’ rigor, dedicated the film to his parents, who grew up near the 17th parallel and fled Vietnam during the war, as well as refugees “who have gone to a different country and made a different life, but had stories in the past that have never been shared”.

Nguyen said the the film invites audiences to consider “uncomfortable truths” – a position echoed by Knight. “When there are questions about our own profession, we need to examine ourselves,” he said. “We’re all stronger if we examine ourselves, ask tough questions and are more open and honest about what goes on in our profession.”

• The Stringer is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution