After a visit from the ghost of her sister, a rebellious 16 year old Japanese American girl hits the road with her boyfriend in search of a better life. Hooking up with activist friends along the way, she comes to an important realization about her past: that her parents were incarcerated in an internment camp during World War II. She detours her road trip, ditches her boyfriend and drives off into the Arizona desert in a determined search for the truth that will set her free.
Direction
Tajiri blends experimental memory fragments with gritty realism.
Writing
Unapologetically political yet deeply personal script.
Cinematography
Bleached desert landscapes mirror internal emptiness.
Director
Rea Tajiri
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tajiri's own parents were incarcerated at Poston; she spent fifteen years developing this semi-autobiographical project after discovering family silence around the camps.
The strawberry field hallucination sequence was shot on expired 16mm stock Tajiri found in a garage sale, giving those memory fragments their ghostly, deteriorated texture.
US
