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‘Uncomfortable truths’: controversial film challenges authorship of famous photo

The Stringer, which premiered at Sundance, alleges that an incorrect credit was given for iconic ‘Napalm Girl’ picture

Officially titled The Terror of War, the image, taken on 8 June 1972, depicts a naked nine-year-old girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she and several crying, burned children flee a napalm attack in the south Vietnamese village of Trảng Bàng. In a 23-page report, the AP outlined its own research process, including its archive of negatives, oral histories, a visual timeline that “offer[s] little evidence about the provenance of the photo”, eyewitness accounts and the fact that Robinson – described as a “disgruntled” former employee – did not mention the story in his 2019 memoir. The investigators also consult forensic experts with the French NGO Index for their own compelling visual timeline, presented in full to the audience, which finds it “highly unlikely” that Ut took the photo based on the other images AP credited to him that day, and puts Nghe in the right position for the iconic shot.

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