FILMS WILL BE RELEASED ON JUNE 28, 2020

Visit: https://www.jampilgrimages.com/film-festival

THE MANZANAR FISHING CLUB

Directed Cory Shiozaki

 THE MANZANAR FISHING CLUB is a feature length documentary that chronicles the WWII internment of Japanese-American from a unique perspective: through the eyes of those who defied the armed guards, barbed wire and searchlights to fish for trout in the surrounding waters of the Eastern Sierra. By emphasizing the evacuees’ personal stories it is the first internment film to go beyond the confinement itself, and instead highlight values – courage, responsibility and cooperation – that enable the human spirit. Interviews with noted experts provide new insights in to the social political backdrop of the internment. This is the untold story of those who refuse to knuckle under and risked it all to go fishing just like other ordinary Americans.

Manzanar Fishing Club is available for purchase on DVD at www.fearnotrout.com

DAVE TATSUNO: MOVIES AND MEMORIES

Directed by Scott Gracheff

At the beginning of World War II, Dave Tatsuno and his family, along with 120,000 other men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated from their homes to ten remote and desolate imprisonment camps in the interior of the United States. Dave, with the help of a camp official, smuggled his 8mm film camera into the camp in Topaz, Utah and for three years, documented his life behind barbed wire. These home movies eventually became TOPAZ MEMORIES, the only full color film of the Japanese American internment experience shot by an internee and in 1996 the film was accepted to The Library of Congress National Film Registry. To date, it is one of only two home movies held by the Library of Congress – the other being the Zapruder film of the J.F.K. assassination. DAVE TATSUNO, MOVIES AND MEMORIES tells the amazing life story of this inspiring individual.

THE CRYSTAL CITY

Directed by Kenya Gillespie

Combining present-day interviews and archival footage, this short documentary explores the physical remains of the Crystal City Incarceration Camp and the memories of its Japanese American survivors.

HIDDEN LEGACY: JAPANESE TRADITIONAL PERFORMING ARTS IN THE WWII INTERNMENT CAMP

Directed by Shirley Muramoto Wong

Various essays and studies concerning the camps have been published, but have focused on the political and legal aspects of the internment, while hardly mentioning cultural and recreational activities in the camps.  When cultural and recreational activities have been documented, they have focused on American culture, such as baseball and swing music.  This film will be the first major presentation of the existence of traditional music, dance and drama in the camps. Included are stories of artists in the fields of music, dance and drama who were interned at Tule Lake, Manzanar, Amache/Granada, Rohwer, Gila River and Topaz.