The Princess of Nebraska 2007

Sasha, a teenage girl, has come to the United States from China to study at a university in Omaha, Nebraska. She is four months pregnant from a one-night-stand with Yang, a nándàn back in Beijing. She travels to San Francisco for an abortion and to look for Boshen, a white American gay man who was romantically involved with Yang. Boshen was deported back to the US by the Chinese government for aiding a Western journalist on a story about AIDS. Yang has cut off all communications with both Sasha and Boshen, creating a tense, unresolved triangle that haunts her decisions.

When she lands at the Oakland International Airport, her friend does not arrive to pick her up as promised. She rides the BART into downtown San Francisco and meets him, whose plan is to convince her to keep the baby and start a three-member family in the hopes of baiting Yang to come to America. Amid the city’s neon glow, she also befriends [X], a karaoke bar-hostess, and the two of them entertain a group of businessmen in a private karaoke room. Later, she spends the night with X, a moment that deepens her sense of vulnerability and possibility in a foreign land.

Throughout the film, Sasha keeps texting Yang, who never responds, a stubborn thread of connection that refuses to die. She also creates a mobile video diary, a personal archive that is intercut throughout the narrative to reveal her inner life, fears, and evolving hopes. The diary becomes a quiet counterpoint to the outward search for clarity, stitching together moments of loneliness with fleeting glimpses of joy.

Although Sasha arrives with the intention of undergoing an abortion, she slowly begins to consider the many options available in America and starts to embrace the concept of moving on. At her ultrasound appointment, she makes a decisive turn, choosing a path that feels more about choosing life on her own terms than about any single outcome. She leaves the clinic and steps into a city parade, the sound and color offering a strange form of comfort amid uncertainty.

In the final sequence, the camera pulls back to a large empty room where Sasha lip-syncs alone to a haunting ballad. The performance becomes a solitary declaration of resilience, blending sorrow with a stubborn, haunting hope.

“Hope there’s someone/Who’ll take care of me/When I die, will I go.”