Qiu Chin spent 68 years as an actor, most of those years through Hollywood, “The Joy Luck Club” and “The Sympathizers,” a career built mostly outside the country’s borders that shaped her and took her further away from her country of origin.
This week, that arc bends. Chrysalis, based on the memoirs of Vietnamese-American artist Sir Daniel K. Win and starring Kiu Trinh as a grandmother in 1972 Saigon, will be included in the official selection of the Da Nang Asian Film Festival, marking the first time the actor has returned to Vietnam in competition with his own film.
“My life has taken me from Saigon to Hollywood and back again, but Vietnam has always been in my heart,” Kieu Trinh told Variety. “Now that I’m back with ‘Chrysalis’ and the film is being welcomed at a competition in Da Nang, Vietnam, it feels like coming home.”
DANAFF IV is organized by the Vietnam Film Development Association in cooperation with the Da Nang People’s Committee and will be held in Da Nang until July 4th. “Chrysalis” is one of the selections at this year’s festival, which also has a “Focus on American Films” program, and its presence in competition is seen by almost everyone involved in the project as more of a homecoming than a premiere.
The film is based on Wynne’s memoir, The Scarcity of Love, which traces his childhood in Vietnam through displacement and loss, and his subsequent career as an internationally recognized painter and sculptor working in a style he calls “existential surrealism,” which uses dreamlike compositions to examine the nature of existence. Based on a novel by Wynn, Randall J. Slavin and Schulz, with a screenplay by Andrew Creme and directed by J. Robert Schulz, “Chrysalis” intersects Wynn’s current life as an artist hammering away at a mysterious metal apple in his studio with his childhood in war-torn Saigon. A boy nicknamed Koo Deng lives with an absentee mother who works in a brothel and a stepfather who gives him no love or support. When she falls ill after being bullied at a Catholic orphanage, she suddenly reunites with her father, whom she thought was dead.
At the center of it all is grandmother Ba Noi, played by Kieu Ching. Vanoy’s selfless act of love in sending the boy to an orphanage, and her unwavering care over the ensuing years, allowed his artistic brilliance to take hold as a means of self-expression amidst the chaos around him. “I’ve known women like her all my life, and I’ve lived through the years that this family lived,” Qiu Ching told Variety. “I didn’t have to imagine her. Playing the voice of a Vietnamese grandmother in a Vietnamese story felt like something that was imposed on me.”
According to the film’s producers, “Chrysalis” marks the first time the Vietnamese government has given permission to a U.S. production company to film a wartime story on location in the country, a distinction that overshadows nearly every other claim about the project. Filming took place in April 2025 in Ho Chi Minh City, Orange County, and Los Angeles, California, with the majority of wartime scenes filmed on mainland Vietnam rather than being recreated on studio backlots overseas. Pre-production ran from January 2025 to April 2025, and post-production lasted from May 2025 to March 2026.
The cast surrounding Kieu Trinh is heavily influenced by Vietnam’s domestic industry. Nguyen Vu Uy Nhanh, best known for “Thiem Anh Cua Quy” and “Fly 2023,” plays the childhood version of Daniel, while Le Anh Hui, who starred in “Kue” and the TV series “Luoy Troi,” plays the young version of Daniel who reunites with his grandmother after more than 10 years apart.The film’s character notes describe the reunion as shocking because of its brevity. Ba Noi dies shortly after the two reconcile. And Daniel, who had just become an adult, was too preoccupied with self-denial to attend the funeral. Samuel Ang, who appeared in Thien Thanh Ho Meng and M Va Trinh, will play Daniel’s father. He worked as an interpreter between the American and South Vietnamese forces, then at the American embassy, a job that ultimately led to him taking his family, including his child Daniel, out of the country at the end of the war. Winn himself appears in the current timeline as an adult artist.
Behind the camera, a Vietnam-based production team was paired with a US-based production team. Thien Pham of Legend Artist Entertainment, whose credits include “The Sympathizer” and “NCIS-LA,” and Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Marvel, 20th Century Studios, and CJ Dang Thu Hien, E&M’s former Vietnam marketing director, will serve as producer and co-producer, respectively, and David Hopwood of Group of Ferrets, whose credits include Den of Thieves and Golden, will serve as co-producer. “CAKE” was nominated for a Globe Award. Longitude Entertainment’s Steve Longi, whose credits include the Academy Award-winning Hacksaw Ridge, also serves as a producer. Winn and Slavin produce through WS Productions, the entity behind Winn Slavin Fine Art, and their previous film credits include “Creation” and “Ectropy.” The music is by Czech-born composer Elia Similar, whose film credits include Ronin, Stigmata and Wrong Turn, as well as music for the video game Spec Ops: The Line and the TV series Nash Bridges.
“The collaborative nature of its production, bringing together talent from multiple continents, is an example of the collaboration and acceptance that is so needed in today’s world,” Slavin told Variety. “The film speaks to important issues of refugee displacement, migration and personal resilience. The film features a talented cast from four countries and employs skilled staff from both Vietnam and the United States. We are honored to be a part of the 4th Da Nang Asian Film Festival and hope that ‘Chrysalis’ will serve as a template for future international co-productions between Vietnam and the global film community.”
Dr. Ngo Phuong Lan, Chairman of VFDA and Founding Director of DANAFF, echoed this framework in a statement. “‘Chrysalis’ stands out as a remarkable example of collaboration between international filmmakers and Vietnam’s talented actors, creative professionals and production teams,” she said. “The selection of this film to Danav IV’s competition program reflects the growing momentum for cross-border filmmaking in Asia and around the world,” he added. He added that he looks forward to continuing to build on Namu’s reputation, “not only because of its diverse landscape and increasingly skilled film workforce, but also because of its welcoming collaborative environment and rich creative possibilities for telling cinematic stories with global resonance.”
“Vietnam is more than just the backdrop of ‘Chrysalis.’ It’s woven into every part of it: the people, the culture, the landscape, the memories,” Schulz told Variety. “As an outsider, I didn’t want to impose my perspective on it. I wanted to listen, learn, and work with the incredible Vietnamese cast and crew who helped bring the story to life. Their insight and craftsmanship gave the film a level of authenticity that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else.”
“Awards and recognition are great, but what means the most to me is seeing ‘Chrysalis’ embraced and becoming part of a larger conversation about family, identity and the search for home between two worlds,” he added. “It is a great honor to be part of the Danav Film Festival and we are grateful for the opportunity to bring this film back to the country that inspired it.”
Wynn, who serves as both the film’s subject and executive producer, wrote separately about the film’s origins in an artist’s statement. “The pain demanded more,” he wrote. “Beyond the items on the wall, something to contemplate in silence. Something that grabs your soul. That’s why I created ‘Crysalis.'”
“I left Vietnam when I was a child, and I dragged that departure over for decades,” Wynn told Variety. “And now, being able to come back with this film and have Vietnam accept this film, I feel a sense of completion that I never knew I was looking for. The chrysalis is finally opening.”
“‘Chrysalis’ is not a movie about artists,” Wynn added. “This is a movie about all of us, the human condition, human emotions, the adversity we all have and how we overcome it. Without pain, we don’t understand what happiness is. Without darkness, we don’t understand what light is.”
“Chrysalis” will arrive in Da Nang this year after already passing through several other rooms. The film premiered in two market screenings at the 2026 Cannes Film Market, with Wynn, Slavin, Schulz and Kyu Ching walking the Cannes red carpet together, and won numerous accolades on the film festival and summit circuit, including Best Actress for Kyu Ching and Best Director for Schulz at the I Success International Awards, as well as Best Autobiographical Picture for Wynn at the Global Traveler Awards. For this project, Schulz won Best Director at the 2025 Munich Film Awards, as well as Best Experimental Film at the LA Indie Shorts Awards and the Experimental Dance & Music Festival.
The film’s timeline extends far beyond the Danav Film Festival screening period. After Cannes in May and Da Nang in June, “Chrysalis” will be screened in Ho Chi Minh City in September, followed by Beverly Hills in October before a worldwide release in November.
“We want them to feel that their stories are being told with love and truth,” says Qiu Ching. “‘Chrysalis’ is a story about a Vietnamese family and the Vietnamese heart. I want my audience back home to feel seen and proud. And I want them to know that no matter how far away our lives are, the love for Vietnam will always be in our hearts.”
