Monkey Beach

Indigenous from the Haisla nation of northwestern British Columbia, Lisa Hill has long had visions. While her grandmother, Ma-Ma-Oo, and her Uncle Mick, now both deceased, believed in the notion of the power of those visions, her parents, especially her mother Gladys, see such notions solely as old fashioned and unrealistic, typical of stories from their culture. Without a word, Lisa moved to Vancouver two years ago to escape those visions, the escape fueled largely by alcohol and other substances, and as a means to protect especially her younger brother Jimmy, as one of her strongest visions was the constant in all her visions of a red haired man followed by this one specifically of Jimmy drowning despite he being more than at home in the water. Lisa discovered that she could not save those around her, such as her first cousin Tabitha who died while she was in Vancouver, but is now visited by the spirits of the dead, such as Tabitha. So Lisa returns to her home of Kitamaat Village as unannounced as she left to reconnect with her family, including a still alive Jimmy whose Olympic swimming dreams, in the interim, have been dashed due to injury. As such, Jimmy has been focusing more on his personal life, including a burgeoning relationship with Karaoke, the only girl who is able to make him focus on other things besides those dashed Olympic dreams. But Lisa's worst fears come to fruition when learns that Jimmy has accepted a position on Josh's fishing boat - Josh an angry man who blames all his problems as a residential school survivor - and that Jimmy has subsequently gone missing, those fears which may be tempered if she can better understand her visions and the visits from the dead.