A premature coming of age story, premiered at Sundance, Crystal Kayiza’s Rest Stop follows a mother and daughter, both navigating uncertainty in transit. A young Ugandan-American girl whose experience has yet to take her beyond her mother’s arms, Meyi and her family embark on a cross-country bus journey from New York to Oklahoma, intended to unite the three siblings with their estranged father.

Exploring a child’s attempts to process their parent’s difficult reality, and a mother’s efforts to conceal growing doubts about her power, Rest Stop traces the moment of reckoning in which we realize our parents are human. Moving through diverse landscapes representing the American dream, Meyi identifies her place within the family dynamic, and the world, trying to mirror her mother’s calm, while her mother’s inner struggle remains hidden.

Loosely based on Kayiza’s early memory of a journey taken with her mother and four siblings in 1998, Rest Stop is the first piece in a body of work centering the children of African immigrants in middle America. Communicating a relatable story through her own experience, Kayiza interrogates what it means to watch and be watched by others – and how the formation of our identity is shaped by the gaze we cast on those around us.