Littlerock Trailer (2011)

The trailer for Littlerock which will play at the 2010 San Francisco Film Festival.

A road-tripping Japanese brother and sister spend several lost days discovering the less-flattering flipside of California dreaming in this charmingly scruffy tale of misfits, heartbreak and small-town restlessness. Rintaro and Atsuko are visiting the U.S. for the first time. They are headed for San Francisco when their rental car breaks down in the California desert town of Littlerock. Despite the cultural and language barriers—or maybe because of them—they soon fall in with the aimless young locals, including an awkward outcast named Cory clumsily plotting an escape to Los Angeles and clearly taken with Atsuko. She finds fumbling romance with another boy instead, even though the two don’t understand a word between them. Atsuko is seduced by this place that is so unlike her home and wants to stick around, while Rintaro detects its darker side. Soured by what he sees, he continues on as his sister stubbornly remains—embracing California as the storied refuge from troubles. Director Mike Ott proves astutely familiar with hi well-observed setting, convincingly evoking the languid rhythms of purposeless young people, drinking and smoking their days away. The dazzling sunsets and soaring mountains provide counterpoints to the claustrophobia of a small-town rife with petty sniping, racial tension and homophobia. Gently funny and sweetly melancholic, Littlerock is a warm depiction of the confusing and sometimes painful process of finding your identity and lurching towards adulthood.