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.

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.

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.

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

Celebrates the music and influences of contemporary Asian American culture on Dan Kuramoto, June Okida Kuramoto, and Johnny Mori — three musicians who make up the core of the jazz fusion band Hiroshima. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Visual Communications in 2011.

Henry Sugimoto’s translated memoirs, brought to life by Academy Award-nominated actor Mako, reveal the artist’s own journey through his life and art. The documentary features his paintings and sketches, rare archival footage, and film of the artist just before his death.

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.

Wakako Yamauchi, Momo Nagano, and Mary Nomura were teenagers when they were interned in concentration camps during World War II. Behind barbed wire, their creative spirits remained undaunted—their lives fortified by art, music, and literature. Words, Weaves, and Songs profiles the three women artists on their art, personal stories, and experiences of internment.

A lyrical, expressive film history of Asian Pacific Americans on the Sacramento River delta.

Set in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood, TO BE ME, TONY QUON offers a vivid depiction of Tony’s world, culminating with the food, firecrackers and lion dances of Chinese New Year.

Capturing the all-American fervor of parade competition, CHINATOWN 2-STEP profiles the Los Angeles Chinese Drum and Bugle Corps, an important fixture of the Chinese American community.

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.