Browse > Media Type > Films and Video
295 articles
When You Leave (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, Short
- Evils of racism, Loss of innocence, Family - blessing or curse
- Limited availability
Dramatic short film mostly set in Minidoka about a small family that is split on the prospect of leaving camp. As the film begins, Yukio, a young man, returns from a stint doing farm labor on the outside. Sullen and quiet, he refuses to tell his family about his experience. But when his sister and mother announce that they have received clearance to leave, he is unexpectedly reluctant. To try to make the camp seem more like home, he begins building furniture. But when he builds a box for his sister's baby shoes, the crisis comes into the open.
Days of Waiting (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, love and sacrifice, injustice
- Limited availability
An award-winning 1990 documentary film by Steven Okazaki about the life and work of artist Estelle Peck Ishigo , a Caucasian woman who voluntarily entered the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming during World War II with her Japanese American husband. The film won an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1991 and The George Foster Peabody Award.
Oregon's Japanese Americans: Beyond the Wire (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film on Japanese Americans in Oregon that largely focuses on the wartime incarceration and aftermath. Part of the Oregon Experience series, it was produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting in partnership with the Oregon Historical Society.
Removed by Force: The Eviction of Hawai`i's Japanese Americans During WWII (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Empowerment, Injustice, Quest for discovery
- Available
Documentary film by Ryan Kawamoto about Japanese Americans in Hawai'i who were excluded or removed from their homes, but not interned, along with the 1990s efforts by the Honolulu Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League to secure redress for this group under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 .
Silent Sacrifice: Stories of Japanese-American Incarceration in Central California and Beyond (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Sprawling documentary film on the wartime incarceration story of Japanese Americans from Central California, focusing on the experiences at the Fresno , Pinedale , Merced , and Tulare Assembly Centers. In addition to interviews with survivors and descendants, there are many brief silent reenactments of scenes describes by the narrators. The last quarter of the film focuses on Saburo and Marion Masada's pilgrimage to the Jerome and Rohwer sites, where Saburo had been incarcerated with his family as a child.
Stamp Our Story: Honoring America's Nisei Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived
- Available
Documentary film that chronicles the campaign that led to a 2021 postage stamp that pays tribute to Nisei soldiers. The film features the three Nisei women who began the campaign— Fusako "Fusa" Takahashi, Aiko Ogata King, and Chizuko "Chiz" Ohira—along with Sansei Wayne Osako—and includes interviews with Nisei veterans and family members of the women.
The Blue Jay (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Will to survive
- Available
Narrative short film set in Poston centering on Sam and Ayako Shigeta, a young Nisei couple with a newborn baby, and their evolving relationship with Pohache, a Native American staff person.
Namba: A Japanese American's Incarceration and Life of Resilience (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Empowerment, Heroism – real and perceived, Power of the past, Role of women
- Available
Documentary profile of Nisei activist May Namba told through interviews, narration by her granddaughter, Miyako Namba, and comments by scholars and colleagues she worked with in Seattle. One of the Nikkei Seattle school employees forced to resign in 1942, Namba saw her father interned before she and her family were forcibly removed and held at Puyallup and Minidoka . Years later, she was a key figure in the movement for redress for the school employees and in Minidoka Pilgrimages and the establishment of the Minidoka National Historic Site, while being a frequent speaker at schools and events in her later years.
Nisei Bowl (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Importance of community, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary about the denizens of a Nisei senior bowling league in Salt Lake City. While the first half is a lighthearted look at the league and the role it plays in the lives of the members, the second half delves into the origins of the league in the context of the Japanese American community in Salt Lake City, many of whom resettled there out of concentration camps, as well as the exclusion of Japanese Americans from American Bowling Congress sponsored leagues after the war.
Fugetsu-Do (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Capitalism – effect on the individual, Change versus tradition, Importance of community
- Widely available
Documentary film on the Fugetsu-Do Japanese confectionery shop in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, narrated by third-generation proprietor Brian Kito. Kito discusses the history of the shop that was founded in 1903 by his grandparents, the decision to take over the shop from his Nisei father, his trials and tribulations as the shop owner, the different kinds of manju and mochigashi the store carries, and the hopes for the future of the shop now that his son has expressed a desire to take it over one day. The film also explores the Kito family's wartime incarceration at Heart Mountain and its long-term impact. Filmmaker Kaia Rose shot the film at the shop itself and at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , sometimes using archival footage against the backdrop of contemporary scenes.
80 Years Later (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film by Celine Parreñas Shimizu that explores in the impact of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans on three generations of family members.
Go for Broke! (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, War
- War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real or perceived, Hazards of passing judgment
- Widely available
1951 feature film that tells the story of 442nd Regimental Combat Team and that climaxes with the rescue of the "Lost Battalion." A popular and critical success, Go For Broke! represents a landmark in the representation of Japanese Americans in Hollywood films. The film focuses on the transformation of the initially bigoted Lt. Michael Grayson (played by Van Johnson), who is assigned to command the all-Japanese American unit. The members of the 442nd were mostly played by Nisei veterans. Producer and MGM studio head Dore Schary would produce another film centered around bigotry aimed at Japanese Americans four years later, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).
G-Men vs. The Black Dragon/Black Dragon of Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Thriller, Crime
- Fear of other, Good vs. bad, Nationalism - complications
- Available
A war-era movie serial produced by Republic Pictures in 1943 that pits Los Angeles-based American Special Investigator Rex Bennett against the Black Dragon Society (BDS), a Japanese led organization that is attempting to aid the Axis-war effort. There is a brief intersection of the BDS with the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Guilty by Reason of Race (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Evils of racism, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film produced by NBC and shown nationally on September 19, 1972, as part of the NBC Reports series. It was the second major network documentary on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans after The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame , which aired on CBS in 1965.
Hell to Eternity (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- War, Drama
- Evils of racism, Heroism - real or perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Available
Hell to Eternity , directed by Phil Karlson and released in 1960, is a Hollywood war film that dramatizes the real-life story of Guy Gabaldon (played by Jeffrey Hunter), an American Marine who singlehandedly captured over 1,500 Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Island of Saipan during the fighting there in mid-1944. In addition to its portrait of Gabaldon's wartime heroism, Hell to Eternity is notable as the first Hollywood film to portray the wartime confinement of Japanese Americans.
Bad Day at Black Rock (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Thriller
- Evils of racism, Fear of other
- Widely available
Critically acclaimed 1955 movie starring Spencer Tracy whose plot is built around the murder of the Issei father of a Nisei war hero in a forlorn desert town and its subsequent cover up. Though it was one of the first movies to note the discrimination Japanese Americans faced during World War II, no Japanese American characters appear in it. Bad Day at Black Rock was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Conscience and the Constitution (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Illusion of power, Injustice, Power of the past, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Influential documentary film that tells the story of the draft resistance movement at Heart Mountain . Journalist Frank Abe produced, directed, and wrote the hour-long film, which was released in 2000.
Japanese War Bride (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Evils of racism, Love and sacrifice, Family - blessing or curse
- Available
1952 movie directed by King Vidor about a white Korean War veteran who returns to his California home with a Japanese war bride. The couple faces subtle and overt opposition from his family and friends that comes to a head when the couple has their first baby. A Nisei neighbor discusses his family's wartime incarceration, one of the first mentions of this topic in any Hollywood film.
The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, War - glory, pain, necessity, tragedy
- Widely available
Documentary film centering on the Japanese American wartime experience that was part of CBS television's weekly The Twentieth Century series. The half-hour episode was the first retrospective documentary on the wartime exclusion and incarceration experience.
Rabbit in the Moon (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Injustice, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Documentary film written and directed by Emiko Omori and produced by Omori with her sister Chizuko on Japanese Americans in American concentration camps during World War II that highlights resistance and other lesser told stories. Winner of many awards and screened nationally on public television in 1999, Rabbit in Moon has become one of the most acclaimed and widely viewed feature length documentaries on this topic.