This evocative, multi-format short centers on Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che, a Vietnamese couple who were recruited from a Philippine refugee camp to serve as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now. The filmmaker braids the pair’s memories into a cinematic mosaic, flowing between contemporary portraits of the couple in the United States, grainy Super 8 vignettes, and lyrical glimpses of the Vietnamese landscape. These images are juxtaposed with the low-fi textures of a home-recorded VHS tape—the family’s sole record of Coppola’s blockbuster production. While the film captures the bitter irony of refugees reenacting a conflict they had only recently escaped, it also unfolds as a tender testament to the couple’s resilience. Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che’s observations and recollections, ranging from the heartbreaking to the hilarious, reclaim their narrative as their own. PB

Q&A following screening