Éva Gárdos met actress Colleen Camp on the set of C'est l'apocalypse (1979), when she was a casting director for the film. During shooting breaks, Éva told Colleen her true story of her childhood as a Hungarian émigré and Colleen encouraged her to turn it into a film. Colleen Camp would ultimately help produce the film, and played a small role in it as a neighborhood housewife.
The final black and white photo still at the end of the movie is of the young Éva Gárdos being reunited with her parents upon arrival in the USA in 1955.
American Rhapsody was the 1998 grand prize winner of the Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Competition.
Kelly Banlaki's debut.