Seagrass

Directed by Meredith Hama-Brown

Canada, 2023 (fiction, 115 minutes, colour, English)

Film Description:
"Desperate to find a deeper connection in her marriage after the recent death of her mother, Judith (Japanese Canadian) brings her family to a self-development retreat on a remote island. But when they befriend another interracial couple who seem to have the perfect marriage, Judith begins to recognize how irreparably fractured her relationship is. Meanwhile, their two daughters are plunged into a destabilizing world under the constant stress of their parents' crumbling relationship. In the end, the family must collectively face their most unnerving insecurities before they become permanently broken."
-- Game Theory Films (source)

Film Description:
"Judith (Ally Maki) is Japanese Canadian; her husband Steve (Luke Roberts) is white. They're having some problems communicating with each other, so they've found a family retreat on the Pacific coast where kids can hang out while their parents confront one another in group-therapy sessions. But the time together exposes new fractures in the family's internal dynamic: 11-year-old Stephanie (Nyha Breitkreuz) starts acting out, while six-year-old Emmy (Remy Marthaller) insists she can feel Judith's recently departed mother watching over them all. Whether or not Emmy is right, something is certainly hanging over this family—a cloud of tension and dissatisfaction between Judith and Steve that neither can fully articulate, but both recognize. And the more time Judith spends around another couple, Carol (Sarah Gadon) and Pat (Chris Pang), the more she worries that saving her marriage might not be the best move. Drawing on personal themes through a fictional lens and also reflecting on her own racial identity, writer-director Hama-Brown [...] crafts a knotty, insightful drama about the interwoven complexities of marriage and parenthood, and the mistakes families pass on from one generation to the next. Driven by the powerful performances of Maki [...] and newcomer Breitkreuz, Seagrass announces the arrival of a perceptive new voice in Canadian cinema."
-- Norm Wilner (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Meredith Hama-Brown
Produced by:	Tyler Hagan, Sara Blake, Norm Li, Kathleen Hepburn, Meredith Hama-Brown, Ally Maki, Tony Yang, Chad Shields, Randall Okita
Principal Cast:	Ally Maki, Luke Roberts, Chris Pang, Sarah Gadon, Nyha Breitkreuz, Remy Marthaller
Cinematography:	Norm Li
Film Editing:	Kane Stewart, Shun Ando
Music:	Oscar Vargas
Production Company:	Ceroma Films, Experimental Forest Films

(sources)

Award won by Seagrass

Toronto International Film Festival: International Critics' Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) -- awarded to Meredith Hama-Brown

Notes about Seagrass

Filmed on Gabriola Island, in Tofino, and in Ucluelet (in British Columbia).
Shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.

(sources)

Quote by the Director

"I haven't seen a narrative film that looks at Japanese-Canadian identity in this way before. I think a lot of Japanese-Canadian people will relate [to Seagrass]—in terms of what has been lost as a result of trauma from incarceration. [...] There are a lot of people who don't know these stories, even a lot of people who have family members who went through that time period because it wasn't something that was spoken about."
-- Meredith Hama-Brown (source)

Bibliography for Seagrass

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Moraes, Mandy. "Feature film that looks at intergenerational trauma shot on Gabriola Island." Interview with Meredith Hama-Brown. Nanaimo News Bulletin, October 7, 2023.

Web Sites about Seagrass

"IMDb: Seagrass." Internet Movie Database, Inc. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23642420/reference.