Antelope Valley Collection

A powerfully intimate drama that captures the fears and desires of a young Japanese woman lost in the U.S., "Littlerock" is an affectingly authentic portrait of the bittersweet pain of young love and the cruel reality of cultural miscommunication, making it one of the most moving independent U.S. films in recent memory.

"What else am I? What else can I say? I'm a troublemaker," says Cory, one of the three protagonists, directly into the camera. The other protagonists are Anna, an illegal immigrant from Japan who is selling her body to make money to get back home, and Jeff, Cory's homophobic brother, a former soldier who now lives day-to-day. In the style of New Wave filmmakers, the director draws on sensitive moments from actors' lives (meeting your father for the first time, a grandmother sick on another continent), so it's never clear whether we are watching reconstructed reality or the director's vision. Ott warns that his film is about the abandoned youth in America's small towns and the fallacy of the American Dream, and--most importantly--the truth that lies somewhere in that porous threshold between fact and fiction.

Francisco, a middle-aged Cuban exile working at a holding house for illegal immigrants, crosses paths with Cecilia, a 10-year-old Mexican girl who has crossed the border without her family.