Sad Song of Yellow Skin is a 1970 direct cinema-style documentary, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, on the effects of the Vietnam War on street children in Saigon.
[2][3] Michael Rubbo had originally gone to Vietnam with the goal of making a documentary about the work of Foster Parents Plan with Vietnamese war orphans.
Once there, when confronted with the enormity of what was taking place, he felt a film about this humanitarian operation was missing the real story.
[4] Rubbo met the film's through Dick Hughes, a young American who offered his apartment as a safe haven for street kids.
[4] Rubbo recorded his own subjective observations in a diary and developed the idea for what would be the first of his self-reflexive documentaries with the NFB.