Mai American

In a tiny home on the outskirts of an Oregon forest, a mother and son—Tot and Kevin—navigate the mundanity of intergenerational living with their five cats. As the years pass, Tot begins to reflect on the hardships she endured as a young Vietnamese woman living in Saigon during the War in Vietnam—all of which she has written about in a book. As she reads her writing for the first time to Kevin, he develops a better appreciation of his mother’s journey while also trying to understand its connection to his own journey.

Filmed over the course of ten years, Mai American is an exploration of intergenerational trauma within families, the mythologies that are built within family histories and the dynamics between parent and child. Told against the backdrop of the broader Asian American and immigrant experience, and nearly 50 years after the end of the War in Vietnam, the film is an intimate portrayal of an American immigrant woman, her family and the power of a woman’s story—a power that can often be forgotten or overlooked by even her own children.