Summary
When she was around 8, Lisa Jackson began to suspect that she was part Native. Then her mother told her that their Indian name was Nahmabin, or Suckerfish. When she was 10, Lisa fled Toronto to live with relatives in Vancouver to escape her mother's depression, alcoholism and prescription drug abuse - legacies of the residential school experience. Twenty years later, as she sifts through memories and letters from her mom, Lisa constructs a portrait of a woman whose drive to love her daughter triumphed over her demons of addiction. Animation, childhood photographs, stylized recreations and the young child's whimsical voice add to this moving, at times humorous, look at the director's relationship to her mother and Native identity.