We Were the Scenery

We Were the Scenery / U.S.A. (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.

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.

Screenings
Sundance Film Festival, World Premiere, 2025
Visions du Réel, International Premiere, 2025

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: