Long Synopsis
In the feature-length narrative film TIE A YELLOW RIBBON, Jenny Mason, a Korean adoptee and aspiring photographer, walks the streets of New York in a state of resigned indifference. Her days are spent with white friends and colleagues, her nights with white men. She has no contact with her Midwestern family due to a childhood indiscretion with her white brother, Joe. She rejects any attachment, dumping men as fast as she can pick them up. Yet she longs for a connection that would make her feel at home -- a home that she has lost and is forever seeking.

One day, her roommate asks her to move out, fanning her fears of abandonment. But as one door closes, another opens. She moves in with the beautiful but troubled Beatrice Shimizu and meets super-cool Simon Chang, whose sister, Sandy, lives next door. Together they open a whole new world for Jenny, an Asian American existence that she has never explored. Her indifference toward life starts melting away, as she embraces Bea, who battles her own self-esteem issues with family and a philandering boyfriend, Phillip. Bea and Simon encourage and help jumpstart Jenny’s career in photography.

Suddenly, Joe appears at her door, stirring up long lost feelings that she has tried to bury. As Jenny searches for a voice and photographic style that she can call her own, she finds that she must face her unresolved feelings toward her brother and family, and ultimately reconcile her identity as an Asian American.

Making her feature debut, writer-director Joy Dietrich, also a Korean adoptee, introduces audiences to the world of Asian American young women and delicately addresses the abnormally high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American girls, creating a work great compassion and poetic beauty.