We Were the Scenery

We Were the Scenery / U.S.A. & Canada (Director: Christopher Radcliff, Writer and Producer: Cathy Linh Che, Producer & Cinematographer: Jess X. Snow). 15 minutes.

In 1975, Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che fled from Vietnam by boat and docked in the Philippines, where they were utilized as background extras during the filming of Apocalypse Now. This documentary short film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Short Film Jury Prize: Nonfiction and the Special Jury Prize for Short Documentary Film at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Director/Editor: Christopher Radcliff
Writer/Producer: Cathy Linh Che
Cinematographer/Producer: Jess X. Snow
Sound Designer/ Re-Recording Mixer: Haina Zhou
Assistant Editor/ Post Supervisor: Andrew Migliori
Original Score: @infuzemusic
Sound Mixer: Quyên Cat Nguyen-Le
VFX & Additional Sound Designer: Mackie Mallison
Colorist: Stephanie Park

View the trailer here.

Awards
Winner, Short Film Jury Prize: Nonfiction, Sundance Film Festival, 2025
Winner, Special Jury Prize for Documentary Short, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, 2025

Festivals
Sundance Film Festival, World Premiere, 2025
Visions du Réel, International Premiere, 2025
Sheffield DocFest, UK Premiere, 2025
Champs Elysées Film Festival, French Premiere, 2025
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, 2025, Polish Premiere
Aspen Shortsfest, Colorado Premiere, 2025
Florida Film Festival, Florida Premiere, 2025
San Francisco Film Festival, California Premiere, 2025
Chicago Critics Film Festival, Chicago Premiere, 2025,
Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival, Los Angeles Premiere, 2025
Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Premiere, 2025
Doclands Documentary Film Festival, 2025
CAAMFest, 2025
San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, 2025
Ouray International Film Festival, 2025
Afterimage Festival, 2025

Further reading:
San Francisco Chronicle: CAAMfest Shows the Vietnam War Is Still in Our DNA a Half a Century Later
The Verge: Behind The Scenes; The Extras of Apocalypse Now
cinéSPEAK: Two Philly Filmmakers Take Home Awards at Sundance 2025
Hollywood Reporter: Sundance Short Film Award Winners
KQED:  Must-See Screenings at the 2025 SFFilm Festival
Short of the Week: Sundance Film Festival Guide
Sundance: 2025 Award Winners Announced; Stories of Finding Home; Short Film Program 4 Show Audiences the Importance of Belonging

Appocalips

Cathy Linh Che and Christopher Radcliff’s Appocalips is a three-channel video installation about Che’s parents, who while stateless in a refugee camp in 1976, were hired to play extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). The piece explores their surprising, sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking narrative of escaping from Vietnam, participating in the production of the film, and subsequently immigrating to the United States. In centering perspectives historically erased from the master narrative, Che and Radcliff’s film asks questions about power, representation, place, and memory. Given the absence of video-documented, first-person accounts from extras of Apocalypse Now, this work tells a rare and urgent story.

View the trailer here.

Further reading & viewing: