Something Strong Within

This important tribute to the issei (first generation Japanese Americans) integrates the stories of three people who describe a collective history through their personal memories.

Called "an elegant documentary" by Sundance and "eloquent and deeply moving" by the LA Times, Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray is a penetrating portrait of this photographer's search for truth and beauty in a world of impermanence. Los Angeles' Little Tokyo's foremost studio photographer, Miyatake smuggled a lens and film holder into the U.S. WWII camp he was incarcerated in and captured life behind barbed wire with a makeshift camera made of scrap wood. Yet it was his little-known artistic pursuits before the war that honed his discerning eye.

They were American born and bred yet they had the face of the enemy.
 Spanning generations and wars, Looking Like the Enemy is a bold and daring exploration into the often horrifying yet always ironic predicaments faced by American soldiers of Asian descent who fought in World War II, the Korean and the Vietnam wars.

This is an intimate portrait of life in the Mississippi Delta, where Chinese, African Americans and Whites live in a complex world of cotton, work, and racial conflict. The history of the Chinese community is framed against the harsh realities of civil , religion, politics, and class in the South. Rare historical footage and interviews of Delta residents are combined to create this unprecedented document of inter-ethnic relations in the American South.

Short film about the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

PILGRIMAGE tells the inspiring story of how an abandoned WWII concentration camp for Japanese Americans has been transformed into a symbol of retrospection and solidarity for people of all ages, races and nationalities in our post 9/11 world.

The film looks back at the life of a man named Oda and other Japanese Americans through the decades as they face great challenges and joys living in the United States.

A SONG FOR OURSELVES is an intimate journey into the life and music of Asian American Movement troubadour Chris Iijima. Struggling to make sense of their father’s early death, his teenage sons learn that during the 1970s when Asians in America were still considered “Orientals,” Chris’ music and passion for social justice helped provide the voice and identity an entire generation had been in search of. Through animated photographs, intimate home movies, archival footage of Chris’ introduction to nationwide television by John Lennon and Chris’ own songs, their father’s life takes on bigger meaning than they had ever dreamed of.