Relocation, Arkansas – Aftermath of Incarceration

Relocation, Arkansas – Aftermath of Incarceration will premiere on May 12, 2017 on World Channel! Check local listings.

SCREENINGS

March 18, 2017 – CAAMFest 2017

February 25, 2017 – Nichi Bei Foundation’s 2017 Films of Remembrance

ABOUT

In 1942, nearly 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced into prisons in the interior because they looked like the enemy. Two of those prison camps were in Arkansas, a land of deep racial divide. Paul Takemoto’s mother and grandparents had been imprisoned in one of the Arkansas camps. Ashamed of his heritage and deeply rebellious, he didn’t want to know the details. A man of powerful revelations: of his past, of his parents’ past and what they mean to his self-identity, he grieves over lost time and years spent fighting a ghost he never understood. After the war, Richard Yada’s family refused to return to California, where violence against Japanese Americans was worse then it had been before the war. They became sharecroppers in Arkansas. But a code of segregation in the South ruled every interaction. A person could be only be black or white. Where did these non-white, non-black newcomers fit in? Mayor Rosalie Gould’s deep Southern accent belies a fierce determination. Her neighbors threatened her life because she had the audacity to see the prisoners not as the enemy, but as Americans who had been wronged.

Relocation, Arkansas – Aftermath of Incarceration weaves these remarkable stories into a surprising tale of prejudice and perseverance, hurt and healing, and ultimately, the triumph of reconciliation.

TRAILER

FILMMAKERS & PRODUCTION STAFF

Producer/Director

Vivienne Schiffer. Vivienne is a native of Rohwer, Arkansas, the site of one of the ten War Relocation Authority Japanese American incarceration camps. Previously a senior corporate partner at international law firm of Thompson & Knight, LLP, Vivienne is a documentary filmmaker and author. Her novel about the Rohwer incarceration camp, Camp Nine, was named as the If All Arkansas Read the Same Book selection for 2013 by the Arkansas Library Association. Camp Nine was awarded the 2014 Suzannah DeBlack Book Award in Arkansas History, and the 2013 Arkansiana Adult Fiction Award, and received a Booklist starred review. Relocation, Arkansas –Aftermath of Incarceration is Vivienne’s first film.

Editor

Linda Hattendorf. Linda has been working in the New York documentary community for more than two decades. Best known for her award winning directorial debut, The Cats of Mirikitani, her editing work has aired on PBS, A&E, and The Sundance Channel as well as in theatrical venues and many festivals. She edited the award-winning documentary 7th Street, directed by Josh Pais; Julia Pimsleur’s Brother Born Again; Christina Lundberg’s On the Road Home: A Spiritual Journey Guided by Remarkable Women, Nancy Recant’s Jin Shin Jyutsu, and Danny Schechter’s In Debt We Trust. She was Associate Editor on Frontline’s The Choice ’96, and on Barbara Kopple’s Bearing Witness; Contributing Editor on POV’s American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawaii; a cameraperson on William Greaves’ Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2 1/2, and a researcher on the Ken Burns series The West. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and holds degrees in Literature, Art History, and Media Studies.

Co-Director

Johanna Demetrakas. With her first documentary, Womanhouse, about a ground-breaking feminist art installation, Johanna won the AFI Independent Filmmakers Grant, a place in the Whitney Museum’s New American Filmmaker Series, and international recognition at festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Paris, and New York. Her second art doc, Right Out of History: The Making of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Partywas broadcast on PBS and the BBC after acclaim at the London and Berlin Film Festivals. Her art documentaries have been in many museum shows, including the major exhibit, “Los Angeles 1955 – 1985,” at the Pompidou Museum in Paris, 2006. The Pompidou recently bought a 16mm copy of WOMANHOUSE for their permanent collection. Since winning the Discovery Program Award and making the dramatic short Homesick in 1989 (Sundance, Houston Fest winner, Showtime broadcast), Johanna turned her energies to writing and directing dramatic fiction as well as documentaries. Her credits include LA Law, Doogie Howser, MD, and the Lifetime television feature Out of Line, starring Jennifer Beals. In 2004, Johanna produced, directed, and edited a two-hour special Biography of Richard Gere for A&E. It was the first A&E Biography without a narrator. Johanna’s editing credits include The World According to Sesame Street and Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. That epic documentary, edited by Johanna, won both the Audience and Freedom of Expression Awards at Sundance, 2002, as well as being nominated for five Emmys, including a nomination for her editing. She Co-Directed and Edited Busrider’s Union with the legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler. She has collaborated with Renee Tajima-Pena on several films, including My America, or Honk if You Love Buddha, the PBS special My Journey Home, and the P.O.V. film, Calavera Highway. Johanna has served on several awards juries including the Director’s Guild of America, the IDA, The Student Academy Awards, and The Greek Film Festival. She taught writing and directing at Cal Arts and is now on the faculty at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Director of Photography

Pablo Bryant. Pablo has been the Director of Photography on four feature documentaries and has shot additional photography on many other projects, including HBO’s Cinema Verite, and the documentary The Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page. He filmed in India and Nepal for the National Film Board of Canada’s Tulku, which aired on CBC television, and finished shooting the documentary Crazy Wisdom in 2010. In addition to his work as a cameraman he has produced, and directed a short documentary about the epidemic of homeless children in the US called Stand Up For Kids. He shot the DVD special features for MADMEN season 4 and 5, finished shooting on When the Iron Bird Flies in 2012, and began shooting on a feature documentary called Master Zhou in April 2013. He is the producer, director and cinematographer for the short film, Mr. Fish – Cartooning from the Deep End.

Composer

Amman Abbasi. Amman Abbasi is 28 year old composer based in Little Rock Arkansas. He has scored multiple commercials and documentaries, and has provided music for feature films. As a director, his first feature film, DAYVEON, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

Post Production Consultant

Douglas O’Connor. Douglas has been editing documentaries for more than decades. He has worked with most major broadcast and cable networks, as well as with many independent directors and productions. Recent projects include post production supervision and editorial consulting on Roads to Mecca, an IMAX documentary/narrative feature, Post Production Supervisor on the Whit Stillman film Damsels in Distress, Co- Editor on the award-winning IMAX feature Jerusalem 3D, Editor and Producer on Gold Strike, a feature documentary for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Dream at the End of the Rainbow, a feature documentary with director Neil Leifer, and Post Production consultant on Relocation Arkansas: Aftermath of Incarceration, and Resistance at Tule Lake.

PHOTOS

Paul Takemoto and his grandfather.
Paul Takemoto and his grandfather.
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The filmmaker with cast members.
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Art from the Gould/Vogel Collection, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

Additional photos available upon request.

CONTACT

Please contact momo[at]caamedia.org with any questions.

This program is funded by the Center for Asian American Media, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Follow Relocation, Arkansas – Aftermath of Incarceration on the film’s website or on Facebook for updates.