In Search of No-No Boy (film)
Documentary film on the landmark novel No-No Boy and its author John Okada that includes a profile of Okada (including interviews with his widow and children), the background of the loyalty questionnaire and draft resistance , and the book's rediscovery a decade and a half later. The film includes readings of key scenes by poet Lawson Fusao Inada and dramatizations of them by actors.
In Search of No-No Boy was funded by the Independent Television Service Diversity Development Fund and the Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Program and intended as a demonstration project for a feature length documentary. Filmmaker Frank Abe ultimately decided not to make that documentary, instead producing a book about Okada that also collected some of his other writing. It was published in 2018 as John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy by the University of Washington Press.
Might also like ... I Told You So (1974); Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (1981); Conscience and the Constitution (2000)
Footnotes
| Release Date | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 23 minutes |
| Director | Frank Abe |
| Producer | Frank Abe |
| Writer | Frank Abe |
| Starring | Lawson Fusao Inada (interviewee, dramatic readings), Shawn Wong (interviewee), Gail Nomura (interviewee), Matthew Okada (interviewee), Dorothea Okada (interviewee), Frank Emi (interviewee), Jim Akutsu (interviewee), Gene Akutsu (interviewee), Stephen Sumida (interviewee), Roy Okada (interviewee), Dorothy Okada (interviewee), Naomi Pascal (interviewee), Kyle Suzuki (actor), Sam Tsubota (actor), Shoko Zama (actor), Toby McCreary (actor) |
| Cinematography | Stevan Smith |
| Editing | . |
| Studio | Independent Television Service |
| Distributor | Resisters.com Productions |
For More Information
Abe, Frank, Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung. John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy . Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.