Awards: Documentary Short Shortlist, 98th Academy Awards; Winner, Short Film Jury Award, Sundance Film Festival; Nominee, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking, Cinema Eye Honors Award; Nominee, Grand Jury Prize, Nashville Film Festival

We Were the Scenery is a beautiful and emotional documentary short that follows two Vietnam War refugees who ended up playing extras in Apocalypse Now. As a second generation Vietnamese American, this film drove me to tears and perfectly visualized the time and sacrificed that people like my mother and grandfather endured to set my family’s life in the US. (Written by Parker Huynh-Benningfield ’26)