Produced by John de Graaf and Cris Anderson
“A thoughtful, often moving, lesson in American history” – NY Times
Chicago International Film Festival – Gold Plaque
Athens Video Festival – Athens Award
American Film Festival – Red Ribbon
Visible Target is an independent public television documentary about the WWII Japanese-American Evacuation and Internment from the first community evacuated under wartime orders, Bainbridge Island, WA. It was completed in 1984, broadcast locally in Seattle in 1985, broadcast nationally on PBS in 1986, and has been in educational distribution for many years. It was shown in Congress prior to enactment of legislation signed by President Reagan to award reparation payments to former internees.
The film includes Walt and Milly Woodward, publishers of the local Bainbridge Review, who protested the evacuation at the time as being unconstitutional, and other historical characters fictionalized in the novel and feature film, Snow Falling on Cedars. Written and directed by Cristopher Anderson and John de Graaf.
A key advisor on this project was the late scholar Dr. Roger Daniels. Produced in association with KCTS/9 Seattle and University Community Video, Minneapolis, with the financial support of the Japan Foundation, the Washington Commission for the Humanities and the many individual contributors to the Bainbridge Documentary Project.