JUST ADDED
SANSEI GRANDDAUGHTER’S JOURNEY
dirs. Shari Arai DeBoer, Ellen Bepp, Reiko Fujii, Kathy Fujii-Oka, Na Omi Judy Shintani | 27 mins | 2020
Follow the artful journey of five Sansei women artists as they traveled to the 2018 Manzanar Pilgrimage to honor their ancestors who were unjustly imprisoned during WWII.
SPECIAL ONE TIME SCREENING
October 14th 5p pt / 8p et
Namba
Dir Emily Momohara | 45 mins | 2022
A coming-of-age journey in the midst of war and bravery, Namba introduces us to May Namba, a Japanese American woman incarcerated during WWII. It’s a portion of American history not often told.
We learn the story of May Namba, narrated by her granddaughter Miyako Namba. Beginning with the summer of 1941, she chronicles the bombing of Pearl Harbor and President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 that sent Japanese Americans to prison camps, and the impact it had on those Americans.
May was incarcerated in Minidoka, one of 10 such prison camps. We follow as May loses her job and her father is taken away.
In the film, May, Miyako and other members of the Namba family travel to the Minidoka site. Miyako struggles to walk May’s journey. She imagines what she would bring with her in the limited luggage allowed, makes a mattress of hay in a horse stall for a bed, and visits many of the locations that shaped May’s life.
May goes on to lead a life of service, working collaboratively to create community events and spaces for healing and justice. She mentors many local youths who go on to become the leaders they are today.
May Namba’s patriotism, resilience, perseverance, and leadership is an inspiration for us all.
AVAILABLE OCTOBER 11 - 13
No No Girl
dir Paul Daisuke Goodman | 2 hrs | 2022
In the middle of the night, before they are to be sent to a Japanese Internment Camp, one family buries a secret in their backyard. 80 years later, a clue is discovered and what begins as a mystery soon turns criminal as a family of different minds try to come together to discover the truth of their past.
No No Girl is a story told from the generations of Japanese Americans who suffer to this day from the incarceration of their ancestors during WW2. In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans were, by executive action, evicted from their homes and sent to barracks in isolated camps, scattered across the United States. Many families, including the fictional one portrayed in No No Girl, didn't want to depart with their treasured possessions that were too big, or otherwise unable to bring with them, so they buried it. After the war, Japanese American families would return to their homes to find them ransacked, destroyed, vandalized with racism and hate and sometimes even outright stolen. They would have to start again, and move on. No No Girl explores three generations of Japanese Americans who discover the existence of family heirlooms in a home that is no longer theirs. What it brings is more complicated than joy or relief because their place in history is complicated. In this film we explore identity and family; nationality and pride. And watching our characters ask themselves: if it's yours, is it really stealing?
AVAILABLE OCT 11 - 18
Amache Rose
dir billy kanaly | 28 min | 2022
A rose grows in the high desert of Colorado, where it has no business growing. Planted 80 years ago by incarcerees of the Amache Japanese Internment camp.
Betrayed: surviving an american concentration camp
Dir Rory Banyard | 56 min | 2022
Discover the story of a group of Japanese Americans and their incarceration by the U.S. government during World War II. Through the compelling voices of survivors of Minidoka, a concentration camp in the Idaho desert, Betrayed tells a universal story about unjust incarceration and the loss of civil rights.