Jo and the Pirates is a short film about Jo (Joanne), a fourteen year old girl living in her second foster home with two malicious foster siblings, an overworked foster mother, and the foster mother's layabout brother. On Halloween, after protecting her best friend from a neighborhood bully, Jo hides in the woods. She discovers a strange piece of glowing metal that takes her aboard the bridge of a space ship crewed by intergalactic pirates.