japanese american internment
31 movies and shows
Allegiance
Tue, 13 Dec 2016
Inspired by the true-life experience of its star George Takei, Allegiance follows one family's extraordinary journey in this untold American story following the events of Pearl Harbor. Their loyalty was questioned, their freedom taken away, but their spirit could never be broken.
Farewell to Manzanar
Thu, 11 Mar 1976
Fact based drama about one of the internment camps used by the American military during World War II to detain some 100,000 Japanese Americans (most of them U.S. born) following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama
Wed, 22 May 2024
Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama tells the epic journey of the late Japanese Canadian photographer Tamio Wakayama who decides to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the deep south during the 1960’s American civil rights movement. Learning the art of dark room photography along the way, this transformative moment in time allows him to confront his own identity and return ‘home’ to the west coast of Canada to begin a body of photographic work that continues to celebrate, re-present and document the spirit of Japanese Canadians who resided in the former Paueru Gai/Powell Street neighborhoods.
Children of the Camps
Mon, 26 Apr 1999
Documentary following six Americans of Japanese ancestry who were held in U.S. internment camps during World War II.
Omoiyari
Mon, 14 Mar 2022
Violinist and songwriter Kishi Bashi travels on a musical journey to understand WWII era Japanese Incarceration, assimilation, and what it means to be a minority in America today.
Day of Independence
Fri, 26 Sep 2003
Zip, a 17 year-old Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) baseball pitcher, faces the tragic circumstances of the World War II internment of 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry. Set in a relocation camp in the summer of 1943, this film chronicles the journey of an American family torn apart by a forced and unjust incarceration, a father's decision that challenges his son to find strength, and ultimately his son's triumph through courage, sacrifice and the All-American game of baseball.
Kintsugi
Sat, 22 Apr 2023
Kylie, a college nursing student troubled and traumatized by the recent events of her passing boyfriend, learns to find peace and strength through an ancient practice from the relationships around her.
Half Kenneth
Sat, 18 Apr 2009
1945: after the death of his father, Ken escapes Japanese American internment camp to find his Caucasian mother who lives in town. Things become complicated, however, when Kens little brother, Jo, joins him at the last minute.
Under the Blood-Red Sun
Sun, 14 Sep 2014
December 7, 1941 - TOMIKAZU “TOMI” NAKAJI (Kyler Ki Sakamoto) and his best friend BILLY DAVIS (Kalama Epstein) are playing baseball in a field near their homes in Hawaii when Japan launches a surprise attack on the US at Pearl Harbor. As Tomi looks up at the sky and recognizes the Blood-Red Sun emblem on the fighter planes, he knows that his life has changed forever. Based on actual events, Under the Blood-Red Sun is an unforgettable story of friendship, courage and survival.
Resistance at Tule Lake
Wed, 19 Jul 2017
The long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese Americans who dared to resist the U.S. government's program of mass incarceration during World War II. Branded as 'disloyals' and re-imprisoned at Tule Lake Segregation Center, they continued to protest in the face of militarized violence, and thousands renounced their U.S. citizenship. Giving voice to experiences that have been marginalized for over 70 years, this documentary challenges the nationalist, one-sided ideal of wartime 'loyalty.'
Conscience and the Constitution
Invalid Date
Americans refused to be drafted from the concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Ready to fight, but not before their rights as U.S. citizens were restored and families released.
Old Man River
Wed, 03 Mar 1999
Documentary film version of the stage show in which actress Cynthia Gates Fujikawa explores the story of her father, actor Jerry Fujikawa, who had a long career in films and television, most often as a stereotyped Asian. The daughter, in the course of searching out her late father's history, discovers many things that she had not known, among them that her father had spent time in Manzanar, the internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, that he had had a family prior to hers, and that somewhere out there was a sister she had never known existed.
The Untold Story of Ralph Carr and the Japanese: The Fate of 3 Japanese-Americans and the Internment
Tue, 01 Jun 2010
This historical documentary tells the little-known story of Ralph Carr, who was the Governor of Colorado from 1939-1943. Governor Carr was a passionate defender of Japanese Americans' rights when people of Japanese ancestry, including many American citizens, were relocated to internment camps in 1942.
Double Solitaire
Sun, 01 Mar 1998
The filmmaker's father and uncle, Norm and Stan, are third generation Japanese Americans. They are "all American" guys who love bowling, cards and pinball. Placed in the Amache internment camp as children during World War II, they don't think the experience affected them that much. But in the course of navigating the maze of her father's and uncle's pursuits while simultaneously trying to inquire about their past, the filmmaker is able to find connections between their lives now and the history that was left behind.
A Bitter Legacy
Sat, 18 Nov 2017
A sobering look at the brutal treatment of Japanese-Americans before, during, and after WWII as well as the global repercussions that resulted.
The Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America
Fri, 16 Jun 1995
The film expresses the history of oppression, discrimination, violence and hate in America. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige
Wed, 10 Apr 1991
This film is a poetic composition of recorded history and non-recorded memory. Filmmaker Rea Tajiri’s family was among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And like so many who were in the camps, Tajiri’s family wrapped their memories of that experience in a shroud of silence and forgetting. This film raises questions about collective history – questions that prompt Tajiri to daringly re-imagine and re-create what has been stolen and what has been lost.
Fumiko Hayashida: The Woman Behind the Symbol
Thu, 12 Mar 2009
Fumiko Hayashida: The Woman Behind the Symbol is both a historical portrait of Fumiko, her family and the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community in the decades before World War II as well as a contemporary story which follows 97-year old Fumi and her daughter Natalie as they return to the site of the former Minidoka internment camp, their first trip back together in 63 years. The film reveals how the iconic photograph became the impetus for Fumiko to publicly lobby against the injustices of the past.
Sam
Invalid Date
A 1971 film study of a Japanese American who lived in a detention camp during World War II.
Nisei Soldiers: Japanese American G.I. Joes
Sat, 01 Apr 2017
Leaving internment camps to defend their country in Europe, Japanese-American Nisei soldiers of WWII became the most decorated unit in American history.