Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi

In September 2024, Typhoon Yagi made landfall in Vietnam, causing more than 300 deaths and widespread destruction across the country. In the capital city of Hanoi, at least 100,000 trees were uprooted – some of them more than a century old. In this short documentary, the Hanoi-based Dutch filmmaker Kate Villevoye tells the story of one such tree. Mr Cường’s banyan tree was imbued with deep significance for locals and, in particular, the man whose father had planted it in 1973 as a hopeful symbol of peace amid intense bombing, just months before the US agreed to withdraw all combat troops from the country. Featuring shots of Hanoi’s Old Quarter in the wake of the typhoon’s destruction, Mr Cường’s Banyan Tree offers a meditative, bittersweet reflection on the power of objects to create deep meaning in the human imagination.