An Alien Place: The Fort Missoula Detention Camp, 1941–1944 (film)

Documentary film by Kimberly Hogberg on the Fort Missoula Detention Camp that covers the history of the Italian seamen and Issei community leaders who were imprisoned there during World War II.

The film begins with a brief prewar history of the fort before turning to the internment of Italian seamen as well as staff members of the Italian Pavilion of the 1939–40 New York World's Fair. The story is told through the eyes of Alfredo Cipolato, a former waiter at the fair whose visa had expired, and who subsequently married a local woman and made his home in Missoula. The story of the West Coast Issei who were sent to Missoula is told through Masuo Yasui , a businessman and community leader from Hood River, Oregon, using interviews and footage from Lise Yasui's 1988–89 film Family Gathering . The current status of the site as a museum is also noted.

An Alien Place was produced in collaboration with the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula and funded in part by a grant from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program , the Greater Montana Foundation, and the Montana Office of Tourism.

Might also like Family Gathering (1988–89); Community in Conflict: The Santa Fe Internment Camp Marker (2023); Then Becoming Now (2019)