On the main island of Okinawa, Kamei and his friends find themselves contemplating their future during summer break before their final year of high school. Everything shifts when Colin, a young teenager raised on the American base, enters their lives. First sexual awakenings, blurred loyalties, and betrayal unfold beneath the drone of helicopters. Amidst the subtle power plays between locals and occupiers, the clashes and similarities between Kamei and Colin reveal a raw coming-of-age story that asks what it means to belong.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
Amid the initial waves of the Covid pandemic, I left Tokyo for Okinawa in the southern reaches of Japan. While I had a cursory understanding of Okinawa’s recent history, the depth of its cultural richness and historical independence really hit me.
Rather than making a film about geopolitics, I wanted to explore these ideas through something deeply intimate: the relationship between two teenagers from the same place, but not from the same background.
The more time I spent in Okinawa, the more I recognized echoes of stories I had encountered elsewhere. Coming from Canada, a country shaped by both French and British colonialism, I became increasingly aware of the parallels between Okinawa’s history and that of Indigenous communities around the world. Acknowledging the suffering inflicted by colonial powers, both in Canada and beyond, I found myself deeply connected to what felt like a profoundly human and universal story.
Watching both Japan and, later, the United States leave their mark on this small archipelago, I couldn’t help but see reflections of countless places around the world where larger powers have altered the identity of smaller communities. It made me think about how history continues to echo through the present.
Against the backdrop of Okinawa’s complex history, I became interested in questions of belonging, the tension between preserving tradition and embracing change, and the unexpected beauty that can emerge when cultures collide and ultimately reshape one another.