NEWS: ‘Origin Story’ Filmmaker Kulap Vilaysack Brings Lao Culture to Hollywood Hills1 min read
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The ‘Bajillion Dollar Propertie$’ creator celebrated the release of her documentary at her home last Friday night.
In the Venn diagram of L.A.’s comedy scene and its Lao community, one person stands at the center.
Comedian Kulap Vilaysack (creator of Seeso’s Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, co-host of Earwolf podcast Who Charted?) brought together both worlds last Friday night for an intimate party to celebrate the Amazon Prime release of her documentary Origin Story, which traces her journey from L.A. to Minnesota to Laos to reconnect with the biological father she never knew.
Taking place in the middle of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Origin Story‘s release party offered a glimpse of the culture of Laos, just as the documentary itself was an eye-opening window on the country’s 1960s-era civil war that indelibly impacted Vilaysack’s family, as well as that of so many others. The decades-long conflict that received heavy but covert support from the United States – so much so that it was dubbed the “Secret War” by the CIA – created thousands of refugees like Vilaysack’s parents, who fled to a Thai camp before finding asylum in Minnesota.
“That entire story of what had happened to Laos, the extent of what had happened, was truly traumatizing to see and hear,” says Vilaysack’s close friend Wilson, who appears in the film, as does Silverman, Aukerman, Ellis and June Diane Raphael. “It was such an honest story, and she told it with such compassion.”
Photo credit: The Hollywood reporter
