In response, Gearld Ford issued an executive order initiating the immediate evacuation of all orphaned children waiting for adoption. Over 3,000 infants and children were airlifted out of the country over the course of a month and brought to the United States. These children, together with the hundreds of others adopted during the war, created one of the most significant mass-scale adoption events in modern history.

For many Americans, this is where the story ended. For the orphans, theirs had just begun.

President Ford at the San Francisco International Airport on April 5, 1975

Most people can't pinpoint the exact moment their entire life changed, but Mike Frailey can. He was just eight years old when he boarded a plane destined for Missouri alongside his best friend. In Vietnam, they were inseparable friends Thọ and Nga. In America, they became Mike and David.

Evacuated together during Operation Babylift, Mike and David were adopted by American families living on the same street in Missouri. While Mike embraced assimilation and the promise of the American Dream, David struggled to let go of their past. Their paths ultimately diverged, and they had a major falling out as teenagers.

(Upper Left) Mike and David at their orphanage in Saigon. (Bottom Left) Mike and David’s family waiting to pick them up at the St. Louis International Airport. (Right) Mike and David arriving on the tarmac in St. Louis.

In his early 40s, Mike began travelling back to Vietnam and recording his experiences through photos and videos. Mike thought these homecoming trips would provide some closure on his childhood, but they opened a Pandora's box of doubt. Mike began to reexamine his memories and his story. After hearing of David's sudden passing in 2015, Mike wondered how his friend's life had turned out and if he had struggled with the same questions. 

In 2023, with the 50th Anniversary of Operation Babylift approaching, Mike reached out to co-director Derrick Owens about making a documentary. As they began to develop the project together, the significance of David's story within Mike's became clear to both of them. This started our journey to tell the story of Mike and David.

An investigation into the legacy of Operation Babylift and a personal story of redemption, The Adoptees examines the consequences of the Vietnam War through first-hand accounts of the adult adopted children who survived it. 

Our film follows Mike as he retraces his and David's lives—from orphanages in Vietnam to small-town America and ultimately the 50th Anniversary of Operation Babylift in 2025 in Vietnam, surrounded by their wider community of Vietnamese adoptees. As part of our investigation, we believe that David still has a biological family in Vietnam, and we are seeking to find them. 

Told through vérité footage, dual-subject interviews, archival materials, and poetic recreations of fragmented memories, The Adoptees reveals an untold chapter of American history. We do not seek easy answers but instead offer a reflection on what it means to lose—and to reclaim—one's past, one's family, and one's sense of belonging.

A series of stills from the last year and half of filming including stops in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Arizona, and Vietnam.

While Mike began documenting himself and his fellow adoptees in 2009, we officially began filming The Adoptees in January 2024. For the last year, we have captured important scenes and interviews with various subjects and covered the 50th anniversary events for Operation Babylift in Vietnam and America. We estimate we already have 30-35% of the footage needed.

We will kick off our main production in August of this year. In this phase, we will capture the narrative backbone of our film: the interviews with Mike and David's friends, family, and former caregivers. This will involve travel across the country to Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Alabama, and Hawaii. Simultaneously, we will begin working to find David's birth family with Viet Nam Family Search, an adoptee-run family search organization. Our shooting will culminate with a final trip to Vietnam in spring 2026.  

We plan to finish post-production of the film in the summer of 2026, and then we will submit it to film festivals such as Sundance, South by Southwest, Tribeca, and prominent documentary festivals like Sheffield DocFest, Hot Docs, and Doc NYC. We aim to release the film in theaters by the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027 before launching it on streaming.

(Left) Mike and Ross Meador, a volunteer from Mike's orphanage, reuniting in Ho Chi Minh City in April 2025. (Right) Al Toping, former Station Manager of Pan Am Airlines in Saigon, speaks at the 50th anniversary celebration of Operation Babylift in Long Island, New York in April 2025.  

 

We've built an incredible team of artists to bring this project to fruition, and secured the access and interview agreements to make it possible. Up to this point, we have been covering the cost of production out of pocket, but we need resources to do justice to this story. 

While this crowdfunding campaign will not cover the cost of production, it will offer vital early funding that sets us up for further success with grants and institutional support. It's no secret that funding for the arts has come under attack in the last year, and individual donors are more important than ever to keeping independent film alive. 

In 2025, we secured fiscal sponsorship through the International Documentary Association, which means that each donation to our film, no matter how big or small, is tax deductible. 

Other Ways to Help!

If you'd like to support us but can't do so monetarily, that's okay! Here's what you can do instead:

1. Help us connect to foundations or organizations
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You can reach out to our team at our email: [email protected].