Tony Nguyen first screened with the Seattle Asian American Film Festival (SAAFF) in 2016 with his short personal documentary film, “Giap’s Last Day at the Ironing Board Factory” (2015). It is a tender portrayal of Tony and his relationship with his mother, Giap Thi Nguyen, who escaped Saigon while pregnant with him and no father in the picture. She ends up in Seymour, Indiana, where she finds work in an ironing factory. In the short film, Tony muses about the emotional distance between his mother and himself deriving from him never knowing about his biological father, an issue that is never resolved by the end of the short. “Year of the Cat” (2025) follows up on this question, and on the way, unravels a heartbreaking exploration of war, generational trauma, and ultimately, healing. Crafted as an investigative home movie, Tony embarks on an extraordinary quest to solve the mystery of his father, lost in the chaos of the Fall of Saigon 50 years ago.
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. SAAFF Programming Director Adrian Alarilla chatted with Tony about his new film.
Adrian Alarilla: Could you talk about why you made this film?
Tony Nguyen: When I was making my short film more than 11 years ago, I wasn’t originally thinking about pursuing the identity of my father. But the question of who my father was, is something that just lived inside me. And I think I finally was courageous enough to look into it six years ago, when my mother had a mini stroke. I felt like it was now or never to ask her some hard questions and document it. The other piece I would say is being a father myself, I was trying to figure out how to parent without having any positive role models. And it was a constant kind of emotional struggle inside myself.
AA: This is an incredibly personal film not only for you but also for your mother and your family. What made you decide to put your story out there?
TN: I’ve always been interested in documenting my family, partly because I think it’s dawning on me right at this moment, Adrian, that it might be because I grew up not knowing so much about my family’s past and the identity of my father. So, becoming a parent myself, and not wanting those gaps for my children, I felt compelled to try to tell our stories. And I very much learned how to operate a camera by pointing it at my kids and just making home movies with my kids. And my family, I see the film as a family story. And a lot of my family in Indiana were open, fortunately, open to allowing me to point the camera at them.
AA: How have your mother and children received the film after watching it?
TN: You know, before anybody else in terms of an audience saw the film, I did private screenings with my mother and my two kids just to make sure that anything I was sharing with the public, they were going to be okay with, for them to give me a green light to proceed. And so with my mother, we had like this major kind of breakthrough for our parent and child relationship. Because it’s like, what I try to do with my mother, having hard conversations with her, I see it as me hoping to mirror a different way of being with my own kids, that they see me like, the things that I didn’t receive as a child, that hopefully they are receiving. And I’m not trying to throw shade on my mother or anything, it’s just the reality, you know, she did, in my opinion, the best she could. And I think overall, she’s happy for me to have found the answers I was seeking. With my kids, my daughter was just, “It’s fine, it’s okay.” My son, he’s been like, “Oh, I’m proud of you, Papa.”
AA: How was your experience as a diasporic Vietnamese going to Vietnam and reconnecting with your roots?
TN: I love Vietnam, I wish I could go back. I still have family in Vietnam. They’re intrigued with me, and I’m intrigued with them. And when I was there in Vietnam searching for my father, and coming across different people, I can speak a little bit of Vietnamese, and I think they appreciate my efforts. And so, when people found out what I was doing, I’m generalizing here, but a lot of Vietnamese folks were just like, “We believe you’re back here because your dad wanted you to be back here.” But, even though it’s been a little bit of time now, it still was such an unbelievable ride, like I couldn’t have made up what happened, how things unfolded.
AA: So my last question, you premiered this film last year, the 50th year anniversary of the fall of Saigon. How does it feel that, you know, it’s been 50 years since and it feels that the world still seems to have not learned from the mistakes of the past? Do you have any reflections on that or any parting message?
TN: My mind immediately went to, you know, like, the immigration raids that are happening domestically here in the US to the wars that the US involved itself in, and so much conflict around the country and around the world and trauma and loss. And like, like you said, you know, there’s children that are being separated or losing their parents and such. It’s sad to be straight up like that, to think that like, yeah, 50 years out from the war in Vietnam, like what lessons have we really learned? I mean, my hope is that some, if not many of the children of war and displacement and deportations feel moved to try to tell their stories. And hopefully, if my film isn’t too dated in 50 years, that they can also see that this was happening back then too. Lastly, I have this really strong wish to very much unite with the history of my family and to find missing loved ones. That wish or that desire is universal.
Beautiful, touching, and raw. Catch YEAR OF THE CAT at the 2026 Seattle Asian American Film Festival, playing at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute on Sunday, May 31, at 11am. For tickets and more information, visit seattleaaff.org.
Adrian Alarilla, PhD, is a program evaluator, writer, researcher, and filmmaker. Born and raised in the Philippines, he is currently based south of in Seattle, and has a PhD in History from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Besides contributing to the International Examiner, he is an associate with Alaska-based consulting firm Stellar Group, and has worked with Tribal, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies in Alaska, Hawaiʻi, and the Pacific Islands.
