Post by the Scribe on Oct 2, 2021 7:22:20 GMT
BLUE BAYOU Trailer (2021) Alicia Vikander, Drama Movie
© 2021 - Focus Features
"Blue Bayou" by Alicia Vikander
1,545 viewsSep 16, 2021
Blue Bayou (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bayou_(film)
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Justin Chon
Written by Justin Chon
Produced by
Charles D. King
Kim Roth
Poppy Hanks
Justin Chon
Starring
Justin Chon
Alicia Vikander
Mark O'Brien
Linh Dan Pham
Sydney Kowalske
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Altonio Jackson
Emory Cohen
Cinematography
Matthew Chuang
Ante Cheng
Edited by Reynolds Barney
Music by Roger Suen
Production
companies
Entertainment One
MACRO
Distributed by
Focus Features (United States)
Universal Pictures (International)[1]
Release date
July 13, 2021 (Cannes)
September 17, 2021 (United States)
Running time 119 minutes[2]
Country United States
Language English
Box office $791,542[3][4]
Blue Bayou is a 2021 American drama film written and directed by Justin Chon. The film stars Chon, Alicia Vikander, Mark O'Brien, Linh Dan Pham, Sydney Kowalske, Altonio Jackson, Vondie Curtis-Hall and Emory Cohen.
Blue Bayou had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in July 13, 2021 and was released in the United States on September 17, 2021, by Focus Features.
Plot
Antonio LeBlanc is a Korean American adoptee and tattoo artist living outside New Orleans with his pregnant wife Kathy, a rehabilitation nurse, and her biological daughter Jessie. Due to his criminal record, he is unable to find additional employment to support his family, though Kathy offers to resume working to help make ends meet. After being physically harassed by NOPD officers Ace and Denny, the former being Jessie’s absent biological father, Antonio is violently arrested. He is placed into ICE custody and faces deportation when it is revealed that his adoptive parents never naturalized him pursuant to Child Citizenship Act of 2000. Antonio and Kathy seek to appeal his deportation with the help of immigration lawyer Barry Boucher, who requests a $5,000 retainer. Barry warns, however, that if his appeal fails, he can never return to America again.
Antonio strikes up a friendship with Parker, a Vietnamese refugee with terminal cancer who came to America with her father when she was a child, and whose mother had died during the journey. After receiving a tattoo of Fleur-de-lis from Antonio, she invites his family to a communal cookout at her home. Still unable to afford Barry’s services, Antonio and his friends resort to stealing motorcycles and selling them, with Antonio nearly getting caught. Antonio pays Barry, claiming that the money was an advance from work, which Kathy finds suspicious. Barry tells Antonio that due to his criminal record and a lack of factors that would make his appeal favorable, his best chance is to seek support from his adoptive mother, who is still alive — something Antonio had hid from Kathy. Deeply hurt over this lack of disclosure and even more devastated by his refusal to contact his adoptive mother (due to her refusal to defend themselves against his physically-abusive adoptive father), she leaves with Jessie and moves in with her mother. Having begun to lose hope, Antonio severs his friendship with Parker.
Eventually, Antonio chooses to see his now-widowed mother, who appears apathetic and unwilling to appear for his trial. Antonio is fired by his boss at the tattoo parlor due to unpaid debts. He makes amends with Parker, whose cancer has gotten worse. When she falls unconscious, he takes her to the hospital. Kathy gives birth to her and Antonio’s daughter, and they reunite. On the day of Antonio’s hearing, Kathy, Jessie, Antonio’s friends, Ace, and Antonio’s mother, arrive to offer support. Antonio, unbeknownst to them, is abducted by Denny and his friends, who viciously assault him and leave him for dead. Knowing that he's guaranteed to be deported, Antonio attempts to commit suicide by drowning but cannot bring himself to do it. Denny brags to Ace about assaulting Antonio and making him miss his hearing, and Ace, disgusted, arrests him.
After saying his final goodbyes to his friends, Antonio is escorted by ICE to the airport for deportation to South Korea. Intending to go with him, Kathy and Jessie manage to locate him at the airport. Ace also arrives, wanting to say his farewells to Jessie, his daughter, before she leaves. Not wanting to displace his own family and not knowing where he'll be sent, Antonio tells them to stay in America. Unable to let go of an inconsolable Jessie, Antonio is forcibly separated from her as she cries out for him.
Real-life cases of other unnaturalized adoptees who are either facing deportation or have been deported are shown, along with the estimates by the Adoptee Rights Campaign of international adoptees who face similar circumstances.
Cast
Justin Chon as Antonio LeBlanc
Alicia Vikander as Kathy LeBlanc
Altonio Jackson as "Q"
Mark O'Brien as Ace
Linh Dan Pham as Parker
Sydney Kowalske as Jessie LeBlanc
Vondie Curtis-Hall as Barry Boucher
Emory Cohen as Denny
Production
In October 2019, it was announced Justin Chon, Alicia Vikander, Mark O'Brien, Linh Dan Pham and Emory Cohen had joined the cast of the film, with Chon directing from a screenplay he wrote.[5]
Principal photography began in October 2019, and concluded by December.[6][7] It was filmed and set in New Orleans, Louisiana.[8][9]
Chon has been working on this movie for 4 years.[8] He consulted five adoptees who read drafts.[10] They were consulted throughout the writing process and Chon spent hundreds of hours on the phone with them. When he had an edit, he screened it for some adoptees and then received notes from them and changed the edit through the post-production of the film to make sure that they felt comfortable with it. Chon said, "I couldn’t consult with the entire community, but with the people who I was consulting, I was making sure that they felt that it was authentic to them."[11] Chon spoke with adoptees Kristopher Larsen,[12] who was director of Adoptees for Justice, and Anissa Druesedow[13] about their experiences with the deportation process. Larsen conferred with fellow deportees as they passed around the script. Larsen said, "Every deportee we spoke to — it didn’t matter if they were from Panama, Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, China — they all responded with the same thing: This is my story."[12]
The movie is based on true stories Chon heard from Korean adoptee friends as well as research that revealed a broader crisis for Asian American adoptees of a certain age.[14] In the U.S., the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 grants citizenship to all children adopted from overseas, but it does not protect anyone who turned 18 before the law was passed.[8]
Chon mentioned in a GQ Magazine interview, "A lot of people were adopted in the 70s and 80s. It just doesn't make sense to me. For the case of this movie, you have somebody who is a step further than that: you already have these questions of identity from being adopted. And then, not all adoptions end well. So sometimes parents give up their adopted kids, or they abuse them. Antonio goes through foster care and is abused. So to be also given up by your adoptive parents and be bounced around, and then for your country to finally say, we're also like giving you up. Psychologically, I'm sure it's absolutely devastating. So for a lot of people who get deported, there's a high suicide rate."[11]
Release
In July 2020, Focus Features acquired distribution rights to the film.[15] It was released on September 17, 2021,[16] after being postponed from its originally announced date of June 25, 2021.
In 'Blue Bayou,' Justin Chon demands justice for adopted immigrants facing deportation
news.yahoo.com/blue-bayou-justin-chon-demands-140010451.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Carlos Aguilar
September 17, 2021·10 min read
'Blue Bayou' faces backlash after accusations of exploiting an adoptee's story
news.yahoo.com/blue-bayou-faces-backlash-accusations-183000960.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Kimmy Yam
Tue, September 28, 2021, 11:30 AM·8 min read
'Blue Bayou' director Justin Chon responds to accusations he appropriated Korean adoptee Adam Crapser's story
news.yahoo.com/blue-bayou-director-justin-chon-224857874.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall