DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Over a quiet family dinner in 2003, my father, Dr. Alex Moreano, unexpectedly announced that he would travel to Vietnam as a volunteer surgeon. Looking for my first post-NYU Film School project, I nearly choked on my empanada.

“Viet-what, what did you say?” I sputtered.

My shock arose from a deep sense of confusion —as if my father had just told me I was an adopted child. As anyone who knows my father can tell you, he is the type of person who is more likely to burn his house down than he is to donate his time in a third world country. He is a vehement Republican, a proud immigrant, and a cynic to the core.

Or so I had told myself.

What followed was the ultimate take-your-son-to-work day: an intense five-week journey that led us both to Hue, Vietnam. From the moment we stepped into that hospital, all of my previous assumptions about my father began to melt away. After watching my father open up another person's head to remove a brain tumor, I realized that I never before really knew him.

My relationship with my father, however, is entirely absent in the film. The moment I encountered the very first Vietnamese patient my entire life changed. Many people I met on that first day were about to die — some of them bleeding from their eyes, missing noses, tumors bulging from their eye-sockets — and all of them wanted to say something. Suddenly all my personal baggage with my father got thrown out the window.

Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world. Until very recently it had been at non-stop war with its neighbors, colonial powers, and the United States. Its poverty is well-hidden but crippling. Four-thousand Southeast Asian children die every day from diarrhea and other common conditions that are entirely treatable in our country. The average citizen’s situation was overwhelming and filled me with a new sense of gratitude and duty.

I originally started this film to understand why my father had announced he would travel to Vietnam (a purpose which is revealed in the film), but I finished this film because I came face to face with the very real strength of the Vietnamese character in times of incredible stress. And it really shook my heart.

I hope it shakes an audience too.

Keir Moreano
director/producer

CREW

Keir Moreano is a graduate of New York University's prestigious Film and Television Program. THE REUNION, a film edited by Mr. Moreano, won the schools top prize for excellence in filmmaking while Moreano was a junior.

Since graduation in 2005, Mr. Moreano has produced directed two feature length documentaries including AS THE CALL, SO THE ECHO (2005), and UNSPOOLED to be released in early 2007. He recently returned from Ethiopia shooting a third short documentary A CHILD'S REACH (2006), about the struggles of an orphanage for children with AIDS.

Mr. Moreano's fledgling company, Necessary Nomad Films, has helped raise thousands of dollars for international charities, including the MEDRIX foundation, the Ovarian Cancer Fund, and the Kilung Foundation.

Keir currently a producer at Tea Dragon Films where he is managing the global production of the documentary film "The Meaning of Tea" which is set to premiere in 2008.

TIM MALIECKAL - editor
Tim Malieckal is an editor hailing from New York City who’s been a certified Avid Editor since 1998. Preferring artistic projects to frenzied, splashy commercial edits, As the Call, so the Echo appealed to his desire to work on ambitious, thoughtful long-form pieces rather than television's current trend of reality programming. Mr. Moreano's project did not fail to capture and hold his interest, and roved to be his most rewarding project thus far as an editor.

JOEL DOUEK - composer
Joel Douek is a multi-instrumentalist film & television composer whose music spans from orchestral epics and to organic world creations. His film scores include the much-acclaimed "ROCKS WITH WINGS" (PBS, BBC) which won four awards including the HBO Documentary Feature Prize. He was also one of the composers on the recent Anime blockbuster "YUGIOH - THE MOVIE" (Warner Brothers). Joel scores dozens of television documentaries every year and has recently won the 2004 SONG OF THE YEAR CONTEST for his work with Karin Brennan on the Song KING'S X. Joel owns and runs his own studio and music production company (ONE TRACK MUSIC) in New York City.

MATTHEW J. SANTO - camera
Recipient of the 2003 Technicolor Cinematography Award and the 2005 First Run Festival Cinematography Award, Matthew has been director of photography on over 50 short films, features and ocumentaries which have played on IFC, The Sundance Channel, and to festival audiences world-wide. He’s shot several award winning films, recently claiming top prizes at the Filmstock Film Festival, the New York-Avignon Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. Matt has lensed films all across the United States and Europe as well as projects in Kosovo and Vietnam.

GORDON ARKENBERG - camera
Gordon Arkenberg’s interest in film developed from a desire to see the unseen; subjects too dark, too bright, too far, or simply overlooked. His work ranges from experimental shorts to documentaries and from classic black and white photography to astrophotography. His film “Waiting for Wu Li” utilizes both time-lapse and real time footage of the constellations and the moon. Through such work he gathered a reputation as a specialized and experimental cinematographer shooting countless films with most using unusual techniques. He is also collaborating with New York photographer Dwight Primiano on a daring film project titled “Sun” that will film the sun in real-time and close up throughout the duration of a day.

DAVID GROSS - sound designer
Dave Gross has spent his long career in the music industry providing music composition and sound-design. He is rooted in a first-hand foundation of live performance, technical studio expertise, and extensive knowledge of digital audio hardware and software. He’s won over 15 AAF ADDY Awards, and a CINE Eagle Award for music scoring. He is proud to be a part of Keir Moreano’s feature film, As the Call, So the Echo.