We Were the Scenery Film Screening

Filmed on location in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Long Beach, CA, We Were the Scenery is a short documentary based on the experiences of Cathy Linh Che’s parents, two Vietnam War refugees who, while in a refugee camp in the Philippines, were utilized as background extras in Apocalypse Now. Join us for a film screening and conversation with Cathy Linh Che (writer) and Jess X. Snow (cinematographer) about their Oscar-nominated short, and how film can serve as a powerful tool for telling stories about war, migration, and displacement. The event will also include a screening of Jess X. Snow’s short film Roots That Reach Towards the Sky and a reading from Cathy Linh Che’s National Book Award Finalist poetry collection, Becoming Ghost.

To register for the student coffee hour with our speakers, visit here.

Cathy Linh Che is an award-winning poet and multidisciplinary artist who is the Executive Director at Kundiman, the Asian American creative writing organization. Her recent poetry collection, Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025) was a Finalist for the National Book Award, a 2025 NPR Books We Love Selection and featured in Electric Literature’s Best Poetry Collections of 2025. Her other work has received numerous awards, including the Kundiman Poetry Prize, Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies.

Jess X. Snow is an award-winning filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist and in 2023 was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Their films have been screened at university classrooms and film festivals worldwide: including BFI, Rotterdam, SFFilm, BlackStar, Ann Arbor, Durban (Special Mention of the Jury). They are a Film Independent Fast Track fellow for their debut narrative feature, WHEN THE RIVER SPLIT OPEN. Their work has been written about in Current, Deadline, Hyperallergic, Filmmaker Magazine, Screenslate, the LA Times, Journal of Asian American Studies and elsewhere. Specializing in cross-cultural and multi-lingual storytelling, their filmmaking has taken them to China, Vietnam, the Philippines and North America.

Co-sponsored by: Department of English; Kaplan Humanities Institute; Department of Radio, Television, and Film; American Studies Program; Buffett Institute for Global Affairs; Department of Performance Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies Program; Department of Asian Languages and Cultures; Department of History; Simeon Leland Forum

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Host or Publisher Northwestern University Asian American Studies Program