A son’s journey to reclaim his heritage
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Kevin is a filmmaker in his thirties who moves back home to Oregon with his mother after years living in New York City. Feeling stuck living with an aging parent, he begins to film the moments the two share together to find purpose in his current circumstance.
Through filming her for several years, Kevin is able to suss out the facts from the mythology in his family history -- aided through conversations with his two older sisters and his mother’s own readings of her book, which she wrote as a way to release the trauma she lived through as a young woman.
Through the process, Kevin begins to wonder about his father, whom still lives in Vietnam and whom Kevin has never met. As Kevin spends more time examining his family history, he’s forced to confront his own fraught relationship with his Asian American and queer identities. This includes all the times he othered his own mother and the times she’s othered him.
In an effort to better understand his heritage, Kevin takes a trip to Vietnam with his mother to meet the father he never knew and support his mother as she returns to place that caused her so much pain.