NCSML in Cedar Rapids to present free screening on Sunday of Iowa Poet Laureate’s film

National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) will present a free screening of Iowa poet laureate Mary Swander’s film, “VANG: A Drama About Recent Immigrant Farmers.”

The screening is Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. at NCSML, 1400 Inspiration Pl. SW, Cedar Rapids. The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by CRST International. Reservations requested but not required at ncsml.org or (319) 362-8500.

Vang (meaning “garden” or “farm” in Hmong) tells the stories of recent immigrant farmers’ journeys to the U.S. and how they have made farming a sustainable way of life in America. Among them are a Hmong family who fled Communist bullets and wild tigers through the jungle of Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand; a Sudanese man who was thrown into prison in Ethiopia for helping the Lost Boys and left gasping for air through a crack under the door; a Mexican woman who taught herself English by looking up the profane words that were hurled at her during her first job while working in a meat packing plant; and a Dutch boy who put the flag of the Netherlands through a paper shredder and declared, “I am an American.”

Vang is written by award-winning author and former Iowa poet laureate Mary Swander and features photographs by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Deni Chamberlain. Actors are Amy Johnson Schaefer and Rip Russell.