No No Girl

In the middle of the night, before they are to be sent to a Japanese internment camp, one family buries a secret in their backyard garden. Eighty years later, a clue is discovered and what begins as a mystery soon turns criminal as a family of different minds try to come together to discover the truth of their past.

No No Girl is a story told from the generations of Japanese Americans who suffer to this day from the incarceration of their ancestors during WW2. In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans were, by executive action, evicted from their homes and sent to barracks in isolated camps scattered across the United States. Many families, including the fictional one portrayed in No No Girl, didn't want to depart with their treasured possessions- so they buried them. After the war, many of these families would return to their homes to find them ransacked, destroyed, vandalized with racism and hate and sometimes even outright stolen. They would have to start again, and move on. No No Girl explores three generations of Japanese Americans who discover the existence of family heirlooms in a home that is no longer theirs. What it brings is more complicated than joy or relief because their place in history is complicated. In this film we explore identity and family; nationality and pride. And watching our characters ask themselves: if it's yours, is it really stealing?