***** RABBIT IN THE MOON is a visually stunning and emotionally compelling documentary/memoir about the events, meanings and lingering effects of the World War II incarceration of the West Coast Japanese American community. It is also the story of two sisters, filmmaker Emiko Omori and writer Chizuko Omori, who revisited the absence of this vital history in their lives while searching for the memory of their mother who died shortly after their release at war's end.
While working to reconstruct the events of the last years of their mother's life they uncovered a reality far more appalling than they had imagined: betrayal and abuse by their government, betrayal by members of the Japanese American community, protest and resistance by the internees, and eventual return back into a country now foreign and hostile to them.
Rabbit in the Moon was shown on PBS in 1999 and has gone on to win numerous awards, including a national Emmy for outstanding historical programming. It has proved to be a great teaching tool for introducing students to this troubling episode in our American past, exploring issues of racism, constitutionality, identity, and American ideals.
photo <http://www.newday.com/graphics/rabbitinthemoon.jpg>: Emiko Omori and her mother, Poston Relocation Center, Arizona, circa 1945
85 minutes/VHS 16mm also available; please inquire
Institutional (Colleges/Universities): US $250 Community Groups/Public Libraries/High Schools: US $150 Rental: US $100
"Emiko Omori's wrenching first person look at the U.S. internment of Japanese American men, women and children during World War II probes far deeper than other documentaries on the subject, revealing painful fissures within the Japanese (American) that still have not fully healed." -- The Wall Street Journal
"What a powerful film. I strongly believe in keeping the memory of internment alive so that future generations can continue to be educated and so that we will never forget." -- Patsy T. Mink, Congresswoman, Second District, Hawaii
"RABBIT IN THE MOON is both personal and political. It focuses on the loss of civil rights for some 120,000 Japanese Americans and also on the toll the camps took on the individuals imprisoned." -- Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times
"You have given me an incredible resource to enrich my curriculum. I found it moving, informative and appropriate for high school students." -- David De Hart, History Department, Albany High School
"I can say without qualification that this may well be the most important film to come out of the Japanese American Internment experience." -- Mitsuye Yamada, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies, UC Irvine
"It has moved me like no book could ever to. The haunting images actually put a face on all of the histories I have read so far. To say that this documentary is powerful would be an understatement." -- Amy Chen, 11th Grade Student
Best Documentary Cinematography, Sundance Film Festival National Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Programming Best Historical Documentary, American Historical Association Award of Excellence, American Anthropological Association (Society for Visual Anthropology) PBS broadcast, POV series
NEW DAY FILMS 190 Route 17M P.O. Box 1084 Harriman, NY 10926 PH: 888.367.9154 FAX: 845.774.2945
<http://www.newday.com/films/Rabbit_In_the_Moon.html> *****
***** Rabbit in the Moon (Dir. Emiko Omori)
Not all Japanese Americans endured their World War II internment with quiet stoicism. Not all second generation (Nisei) young men welcomed the chance to prove their patriotism by serving in the armed forces of the very government that was holding their families captive. A more complex, turbulent and intimate story of the internment camps is revealed through the stories shared by those interviewed in Emiko Omori's new film, "Rabbit in the Moon."
"Rabbit in the Moon" uncovers a buried history of political tensions, social and generational divisions, and resistance and collaboration in the camps. With fascinating archival and recently recovered home movies, Omori and her older sister Chizuko, who were children when they went to the camps, also confront their own family secrets - especially the silence surrounding the death of their mother only a year after the family's release. They correspondingly confront the collective silence among Japanese Americans about the social antagonisms and insecurities that were born in the camps and that still haunt community life 50 years later.
Storytellers interviewed in the film include: Ernest Besig: director, Northern California ACLU Frank Emi: Nisei, Heart Mountain - draft resistance organizer, judo instructor, political activist Aiko Herzig: Nisei, Manzanar; camp historian, political activist James Hirabayashi: Nisei, professor of anthropology and ethnic studies Hiroshi Kashiwagi: Nisei, Tule Lake - renunciate, writer Mits Koshiyama: Nisei, Heart Mountain - draft resistor Frank Miyamoto: Nisei, Tule Lake - professor of sociology Chizuko Omori: Nisei, Poston - oldest sister of filmmaker, writer James Omura: journalist Shosuke Sasaki: Issei, Minidoka - naturalized American, stock broker Harry Ueno: Kibei, Manzanar - kitchen manager/organizer arrested for challenging corruption of camp officials Hisaye Yamamoto: Nisei, Poston - writer Emiko Omori: Nisei, "Rabbit in the Moon" narrator, filmmaker
To obtain a copy of this film, contact: Transit Media 1-800-343-5540 22D Hollywood Avenue Hohokus, NJ 07423
A B O U T T H E F I L M M A K E R Emiko Omori, a native Californian, is a highly regarded cinematographer, writer, and director. In 1968, she was the first female news camera operator in San Francisco on the critically acclaimed KQED San Francisco program, "Newsroom." For the past 30 years she has freelanced as a cinematographer on many award-winning documentaries, features, industrials, commercials, and educational films. In 1990, she wrote and directed "Hot Summer Winds," a drama based on two short stories by acclaimed Nisei writer Hisaye Yamamoto. A co-production of American Playhouse and KCET Los Angeles, the film aired nationally on PBS in May 1991 to rave reviews. Omori's other personal films include "Tattoo City," a documentary about the art of full body, Japanese style tattooing, and "The Departure," a short narrative film. This year, Emiko Omori was the winner of a special award for Best Cinematography for "Rabbit in the Moon" and "Regret to Inform" at the Sundance Film Festival.
<http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1999/rabbitinthemoon/about/index.html> *****
Cf. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, was the instrument that allowed military commanders to designate areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." Under this order all Japanese and Americans of Japanese ancestry were removed from Western coastal regions to guarded camps in the interior. Former Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark, who represented the Department of Justice in the "relocation," writes: "The truth is -- as this deplorable experience proves -- that constitutions and laws are not sufficient of themselves....Despite the unequivocal language of the Constitution of the United States that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, and despite the Fifth Amendment's command that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, both of these constitutional safeguards were denied by military action under Executive Order 9066..." (Tom C. Clark, "Epilogue," Maisie & Richard Conrat, _Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans_). -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>
