Mystery and menace abound in this debut film from Alison Maclean (Crush, The Rehearsal). Made when Maclean was an Elam art student, the experimental short plays with gender and racial stereotypes by constantly thwarting narrative expectations. What there is of a plot consists of a woman emerging from the sea and a 'centrepiece' pursuit leading to a confrontation between two characters: a man and a woman.
In 1921 the Kwakiut'l people of Alert Bay, British Columbia, held their last secret potlatch. In 1980 at Alert Bay, the U'mista Cultural Centre (U'mista means "something of great value that has come back") opened its doors to receive and house the cultural treasures which were seized decades earlier and only then returned to the people.
Set in Hamburg's “Hell's Kitchen,” a waterfront milieu of gangsters, pimps, dealers and prostitutes, the story follows the attempts of an ex-seaman first to insinuate himself into the scene, and then to extricate himself from it.
“The details of the young actor’s face – his eyes, eyebrows, earlobe, chin, etc. – are set opposite the old buildings in the market quarter of Athens, where every street is named after a classic ancient Greek playwrite.
A guy picks up a girl hitchhiking and starts making advances to her to sleep with her, albeit with the ruse of offering to do a photo shoot so that she can succeed as a model.
Traveling through villages along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border, the filmmakers document the impact of the covert war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government, featuring interviews with mercenaries, soldiers, spies and civilian victims.
When the 'Lowly Ronin' helps an orphaned teenage girl avoid being turned into a prostitute, she then claims he is her father and they start a farm as father and daughter until fate steps in and he must draw his sword.
