Bad Axe

Documentary - 2022 - USA - English - 100 minutes

The Siev family restaurant, Rachel's, has been a staple of life in the town of Bad Axe, Michigan and a daily reminder to its owners Chun, a Cambodian refugee who escaped the Khmer Rouge, and Rachel, a Mexican immigrant, that the American Dream can come true. As their family has grown over the past three decades, their bonds have been continually tested; the fulfillment of the American Dream inevitably comes with costs. In the spring of 2020, filmmaker son David, returned to the family home in rural Michigan along with his adult sisters to help their parents keep the restaurant afloat. David turns to his camera to try to make sense of the forces that threaten his family’s survival: economic peril, racism, political upheaval, depression, sickness-—those same factors that tested so many of us across the country and the world over the past two years. Captured with arresting intimacy, this stunning portrait of a family, a community, a nation and a world is a testament to those who are there for you when all else fades away.

Official Selection: SXSW, Winner: Audience Award, Best Documentary; Special Jury Prize

North American Distributor: IFC Films