New Film Program Showcases Nikkei Issues

It's an example of the films that will be shown in the centre program, all written, produced and directed by Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans.  An attempt is also being made to secure     a Japanese Brazilian film that could hopefully encompass the
entire Nikkei experience overseas.
    
The series is being sponsored by the Nikkei Voice, the national, monthly newspaper for Japanese Canadians, and the Heritage Committee of the JC Centre.
    
The March 28th film coincides with a whole month being planned for the International Day Against Racism that culminates with the Saturday program.
    
The first half of the program has been scheduled.  The films to be shown over the next six months include:
 
 <B>American Pastime</B> being shown in April is an interesting film about Japanese Americans interned at Topaz and how they overcome humiliation by townsfolk by winning a baseball game and a haircut.
    
<B>Citizen Tanouye</B>, a fantastic documentary detailing how high school students in Torrance, Calif. discover one of school's alumnus
is a Medal of Honour winner with the 442nd Combat group.
    
<B>Shepherd's Pie and Sushi, an interesting documentary by Mieko
Ouchi, the sansei actor/director, who eventually finds her JC identity.
    
There's a summer hiatus for July and August, then the film series resumes in the fall.  
The film being showcased for September is "Beyond the Barbed Wire," an absorbing documentary about the all Japanese American 442nd Combat Battalion, which won respect back     for JAs after becoming the most decorated American unit in the Second World War.
    
For October, two short documentaries are being shown  --- Pilgrimage, an interesting and inspirational story about    how an annual pilgrimage for Japanese Americans to the Manzanar    internment camp turns into a bigger civil rights march for other ethnic groups; the second is Minoru. A National Film Board doc on the Japanese Canadian internment.
    
The film program winds up for this year in November with a showing of "Obachan's Garden," a unique portrait by sansei film-maker, Linda Ohama, who interviews her 103-year-old grandmother.

The former picture bride reveals a painful past of memories and feelings/        Information about the film series can be obtained from the Heritage Committee at the JC Centre.  Contacts are:  Mike Murakami, Ken Noma, Mika Fukuma and Mel Tsuji..   The Centre:  416-441-2345