Amache: An American Injustice
Amache: An American Injustice tells the compelling and heartbreaking story of the racist imprisonment of Japanese Americans through the experiences of the people held at the Amache incarceration site.
Hayashi Studio
Who is missing in our history? Hayashi Studio investigates the hidden history of BC, as documented by a Japanese photographer, Senjiro Hayashi.
Enemy Alien
A poetic retelling of the experiences of Joseph Murakami, a fourteen-year-old boy from Darwin, who is summarily rounded up and interned by his government on the basis of his ethnicity, leaving wounds unhealed to this day.
A Bitter Legacy
A sobering look at the brutal treatment of Japanese-Americans before, during, and after WWII as well as the global repercussions that resulted.
Topaz
Documents the denial of rights to American citizens of Japanese descent who were forced from their homes to Utah's desert rangeland during World War II. This documentary discusses internment, contains interviews with former internees, and has footage of Topaz from Dave Tatsuno's movie filmed during camp.
Manzanar
Short film about the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.
The Sweet and the Bitter
A Japanese woman arrives in Vancouver seeking revenge against the businessman who ruined her family.
Samuel Wilder King: Fighting for Statehood
Samuel Wilder King, a descendant of Scottish sailors and Hawaiian royalty, served as a distinguished Naval officer in both World Wars before becoming Governor of the Hawaii Territory. This short film delves into King’s fearless leadership—from navigating the high seas during WWI to fighting against the internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii during WWII—ultimately championing Hawaii's path to statehood as the 50th star on the American flag.
Hatsumi
In Japanese, “shi kata ga nai” means “it can't be helped”. As a phrase, it represents the philosophical basis of the Japanese cultural reserve, through which adversity is never acknowledged. Nancy Okura is a Canadian of Japanese decent. During the Second World War, she was involuntarily removed from her home and relocated to an internment camp by the Government of Canada. Shi kata ga nai prevented Nancy Okura from ever speaking about her internment.
Guilty by Reason of Race
Guilty by Reason of Race was produced and reported by veteran producer Robert Northshield and incorporated historic footage and photographs with contemporary interviews with Japanese Americans as well as those who advocated for incarceration at the time to tell the story of Japanese American removal from the West Coast and their subsequent confinement in concentration camps. Several former inmates are filmed visiting the places where they had been incarcerated, including Amy Uno Ishii, J. H. Takeda, and Betty Kozasa visiting Santa Anita and activist Edison Uno (who was an adviser to the film's producers) at Amache. It is also notable for including an interview in Tokyo with renunciant Masao Amachi, who recalled that he had "lost confidence" in the U.S. and felt that no matter who won the war, that he "would always be looked at as a Jap."
Nomoto: A BC Tragedy
The injustice of the Japanese internment is explored through the story of Kyuichi Nomoto, one of the first Japanese Canadians to graduate from UBC, who suffered a breakdown deep in the BC Interior.
Before They Take Us Away
At the start of World War II, Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were faced with the threat of forced removal and incarceration in concentration camps. A small number took their fate in their own hands, fleeing to interior states, becoming refugees in their own country, on a forced migration into the unknown. Before They Take Us Away is the first feature documentary to chronicle the untold stories of the “self-evacuees” who spent the war years outside the camps, as they struggled to rebuild their lives and overcome poverty, isolation, hostility and racial violence.