My Niagra

Within the unsettling quiet of an unnamed suburb, My Niagara probes the emotional undercurrents of a young third-generation Japanese woman. Julie Kumagai’s life with her widower father is marked by pained tensions and turbulent emotions. Julie’s memory of her mother who drowned earlier off the coast of Osaka remains shrouded in mystery and melancholy. Indifferent to a break up with her boyfriend and the lure of a long planned trip, Julie finds momentary pleasure with Tetsuro, a young Korean newly emigrated from Japan who is obsessed with all things American. Julie and Tetsuro encounter differences in the personal and cultural circumstances which separate them, and they part without easy resolution. Between suburban bliss and absolute alienation, MY NIAGARA evokes the complex dislocations of and Asian Canadian woman.