A twelve-year old girl tries out for the traditionally all-boys Chinese youth Olympic weightlifting team. As she prepares for her final test, she makes an unlikely connection with the weightlifting gym's reclusive groundskeeper.

MOTHER TONGUE (母语) is a portrait of a Chinese American family in which the consequences of a mother’s decision to leave her young daughter in the care of a white American “homestay” family are slowly unearthed over the course of a family dinner. Inspired by the “parachute kids” he knew growing up, writer/director Johnson Cheng explores the emotions of a daughter who is allowed to reunite, briefly, with her mother and attempts to make a connection with her.