Thomas Billhardt (*1937) was one of the first photo journalists to capture the horrors of the Vietnam War on camera. He expressed human suffering through the iconography of big, expressive children’s eyes. His style stirred empathy and solidarity across national borders.
In 1999, Thomas Billhardt visited Hanoi together with the documentary filmmakers Dietmar Ratsch and Arek Gielnik to shoot the documentary ICE LEMONADE FOR HONG LI. For this purpose, Thomas Billhardt received permission to erect a photo wall as a film backdrop at Dong-Kinh-Nghia-Thuc square. The photos became a magnet for young and old – comparable to his later exhibition Hanoi 1967-1975, shown at Manzi in 2020 and published as a book at Nha Nam Publishing House.