YEAR OF THE CAT - Film Premier

YEAR OF THE CAT | 2025, 98 minutes | a film by tony nguyen

Awards: Viet Film Fest 2025 Spotlight Award; CAAMFest 2025 Audience Award; Special Jury Prize, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival 2025

Press: SF Chronicle; PBS KQED.

Watch the trailer here.

"A powerful, tender, and revealing story about family and identity." - ALICE WONG, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow & author of Year of the Tiger: An Activist Life

"At a time when so many events, exhibits, and readings focus on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Viet Nam War, YEAR OF THE CAT dares to move beyond it. This is not our parents’ war story. This is our story—about identity, memory, and healing. Tony Nguyen’s film signals a powerful shift: a break from the burden of carrying that legacy exactly how the older generation wants it done. His work is nothing short of revolutionary." - PROFESSOR KIEU-LINH CAROLINE VALVERDE, University of California, Davis

“In this beautiful and moving film documenting the long search for his biological father, Tony Nguyen threads the needle between cautious and courageous, diplomatic and risky. It is highly specific, highly personal, and in its transformative spirit, it is universal. It's as much about the friends and family he makes along the way as it is about finding an answer. And in a society that erases us at best and enacts violence on us at worst, it's inspiring to see a fellow Vietnamese American, an Asian American man, model vulnerability and love.” - BAO PHI, Caldecott Award-winning author of A Different Pond and Sông I Sing.

Film Synopsis: YEAR OF THE CAT follows filmmaker Tony Nguyen on an extraordinary quest to solve the mystery of his father, lost in the chaos of the Fall of Saigon 50 yearsago. Crafted as an investigative home movie, this intensely raw documentary weaves together moments of humor and heartache, offering an intimate look at how the children of refugees are shaped by war and loss. As Tony delves into his family’s history, the film reveals the emotional lengths we go to in confronting the past—and the possibility of healing as we reclaim and transform our futures.