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My Lai movie to be reminder of war atrocities: Oliver Stone

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone said he wanted his film portrayal of the 1968 My Lai massacre by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam to serve as a reminder of war atrocities, newspapers reported on Friday.

Stone has been visiting central Vietnam since Wednesday and went to the site of the killing of 500 civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968, the worst recorded U.S. war crime committed in Vietnam.

Two dailies, Thanh Nien (Young People) and Tuoi Tre (Youth), quoted the director as referring to the U.S. war in Iraq when he talked to survivors of My Lai on Thursday. Americans serving in Iraq have been accused of torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison and of the November 2005 killing of civilians in Haditha.

"Iraq is a terrible nightmare but we have to be reminded of what happened in My Lai, otherwise we would repeat our mistake," Stone told Thanh Nien in My Lai, a hamlet in Son My village in central Quang Ngai province.

Stone's $40 million production "Pinkville" is in the early stages and it is not yet known whether filming will take place in Vietnam or another Southeast Asian country.
Read entire article at Reuters