Film Questions Who Really Took Iconic War Photo

It is one of the 20th century's most memorable images: a naked girl, screaming, running from a napalm bombing during the Vietnam War. More than a half-century later, a new documentary is calling into question who took it. Nick Ut, the retired AP photographer long credited for the photo insists it was his, and the AP—his longtime employer—backs him up after its own investigation.

• A film about the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture, The Stringer, is scheduled to debut next week at the Sundance Film Festival. Both Ut and the AP are contesting it vigorously, and Ut's lawyer is seeking to block the premiere, threatening a defamation lawsuit.
• The AP, which conducted its own investigation over six months, concluded it has "no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo."

• The picture of Kim Phuc running down a road in the village of Trang Bang, crying and naked because she had taken off clothes burning from napalm, instantly became symbolic of the horrors of the Vietnam War. Taken on June 8, 1972, the photo is credited to Ut, then a 21-year-old staffer in AP's Saigon bureau. He was awarded the Pulitzer a year later. He is now 73 and retired in California.
• That Ut took the photo went unchallenged for much of its 53-year existence. All these years later, a counter-narrative has emerged that it was instead taken by another person, someone who working that day as a driver for NBC News and also lives now in California. The person (who will be identified in the film) allegedly had delivered his film to the AP's office as a "stringer," a non-staff member who provides material to a news organization.
• The husband-and-wife team of Gary Knight, founder of the VII Foundation, and producer Fiona Turner are behind the film. On his website, Knight described The Stringer as "a story that many in our profession did not want told, and some of them continue to go to great lengths to make sure isn't told."
• A key source for the film is Carl Robinson, then a photo editor for the AP in Saigon, who was overruled in his judgment not to use the picture because it depicted nudity. Ut's lawyer, James Hornstein, characterized Robinson as "a guy with a 50-year vendetta against the AP."
• The lawyer also produced a statement from Kim Phuc, who said that while she has no memory of that day, her uncle has repeatedly told her that Ut took the picture and that she had no reason to doubt him. Ut also took her to the nearest hospital after the photo was taken, she wrote.

(More Vietnam War stories.)