Somewhere To Be

On a scorching summer day, Shelly and her mom pull up to a gas station. When the gas station attendants refuse to serve them for looking “foreign,” Shelly’s mom refuses to leave. All the adults are soon yelling at each other in their different native languages. It feels like it’s up to Shelley to make the day go right.

Based off of Writer-Director Christy Chan’s childhood experiences in the rural South, Somewhere To Be transports us to a moment when an immigrant family faces the threat of violence and an Asian-American child does not have the privilege of innocence. In a time when we face a new tide of anti-immigrant sentiment, the film asks us to consider:  Who gets to have power and a voice in our country?  When a world of racism is being preserved by adults, how are kids and their parents to cope?