Internationally acclaimed for his cinematic realism and social commitment, Kaneto Shindo based the story of THE HORIZON on his sister's experiences. The film concerns Hideo, a young girl who leaves Japan in 1920 to settle her family's debt by being sold in marriage to a Japanese farmer in San Francisco. Over the next 20 years the couple works hard and raises 4 children. After Pearl Harbor is attacked they are interned with other Japanese immigrants in a camp, losing both their land and their assets. Hideo has now been uprooted twice and has to adjust to her son's going to war and her daughters' post-war assimilation and marriage to Americans despite her protests. But Hideo is a survivor and she awaits a new immigrant from Japan with hope.