Blue Bayou

(US, Canada / 2021 / Directed by Justin Chon)

October 1 - 3, & October 6
Fri - Sat 4:00 / Sun 7:00 / Wed 7:00

Antonio LeBlanc (Justin Chon) is a Korean adoptee who was raised in a small town in the Louisiana bayou. At one time, he ran with a crew of motorcycle thieves, but he’s clean now and working as a tattoo artist who’s married to the love of his life, Kathy (Alicia Vikander), and step-dad to their daughter, Jessie.

Jessie’s biological dad is a blue-eyed cop named Ace (Mark O’Brien), who’s jealous that his daughter is being “kept” from him. This powder keg erupts during an altercation at a grocery store, when Ace’s partner, looking to avenge his friend, attacks Antonio and drags him off to the local ICE facility.

What follows is not subtle, but the issue at hand isn’t subtle either. In an era when people who were adopted into American families – sometimes 30, 40 years ago – are facing deportation in increasing numbers, Chon has chosen to make a film that sympathizes with what happens when Americans with no connection to where they were born get caught in a system that’s rigged against them.

R / 1 hr 59 mins.