FOR RELEASE: June
12, 2001
contact: Frank Abe (206) 722-5971
"CONSCIENCE
AND THE CONSTITUTION"
TO PREMIERE IN JAPAN
The
Japanese premiere of "CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION,"
the award-winning and controversial film on Japanese American resistance
to wartime incarceration, will be celebrated at the Fukuoka
Asian Film Festival on July
7th and 8th.
"CONSCIENCE
AND THE CONSTITUTION is a very important film not only for Japanese
American people but also all Japanese," said festival director Shu
Maeda."I think we, all
Japanese, should know this forbidden fact of the U.S. history too, and
think about the true relationship between the U.S. and Japan."
In
reference to the impending release in Japan of the Disney film, PEARL
HARBOR, Maeda said, "This year is the 50th memorial year from the
Pearl Harbor and the big budget Hollywood movie will release soon in
Japan.Mr. Abe's film is
another history of the Pearl Harbor, and the more important film about
WWII."
Three
festival screenings are set for Saturday, July 7th at 2:00 p.m.
and Sunday, July 8th at 12:30 and 7:00 p.m., at the Fukuoka
Asian Museum Hall.A
Japanese-subtitled version of the show is being created especially for the
festival.
Producer/director
Frank Abe said it was fitting that his film was showing first in Fukuoka.
"Both sides of my family come
from the village of Shinbaru in Fukuoka-ken.My mother went to Kashii High School between Koga and Fukuoka.My father's brother and his family still live there.So I feel it honors them in some way to have our film open there
first."
Abe also
announced that CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION has been picked up by the
French-speaking version of the History Channel in Canada.The Historia Channel will dub the program into French for more than
1.8 million Quebec cable homes and nationally by satellite from Star
Choice and ExpressVu, starting in August of 2001.
Domestically,
the film will kick off a 3-day teacher training workshop on June 21st
in Cheyenne, Wyoming.Titled
"Protest and Resistance: An American Tradition," the workshop
sponsored by the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation, will train teachers
in classroom use of the story of the Fair Play Committee and draft
resisters from Heart Mountain as an example of American civil disobedience
in the 20th century.The workshop takes place in the same city where the resisters
were tried in U.S. District Court in 1944.
The film
will also be shown at the JACL Bi-District Conference in Seattle on July
12th and 13th.Director Abe will take part in an Educational Forum on Saturday,
July 14th, at the Best Western Executive Inn, along with Heart
Mountain resister Mits Koshiyama, JACL historian Bill Hosokawa, and 442nd
veteran Fred Shiosaki of Spokane.
CONSCIENCE
AND THE CONSTITUTION recently played to an enthusiastic crowd of 200 at
the Phoenix Public Library, at a screening sponsored by the Asian American
Journalists Association of Arizona; at the Chicago Asian American Film
Festival at Loyola University; and at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena.
The
one-hour film was recently released on home video, which can be ordered by
calling 1-800-343-5540 or by sending $29.95 plus $6 shipping to
Resisters.com, 3811 S. Horton St., Seattle, WA 98144.
An online
study guide with dozens of photographs and primary documents used in the
film are posted along with a talkback message board at .News updates and tape ordering information can be found at www.resisters.com.
Through
home movies, government film and interviews, CONSCIENCE AND THE
CONSTITUTION tells the story of the Fair Play Committee, the 85 Nisei who
in 1944 refused to be drafted out of the concentration camp at Heart
Mountain, Wyoming, until their rights were first restored and their
families released from camp.It was the largest organized resistance to incarceration,
leading to the largest trial for draft resistance in U.S. history.
The
government prosecuted them as criminals, and Japanese American leaders
ostracized them as traitors. The resisters served two years in prison, and
for the next 50 were written out of the popular history of Japanese
America.Through their eyes
we see into the heart of the Japanese American conscience and a public
debate that is still alive today.
CONSCIENCE
AND THE CONSTITUTION is produced by Frank Abe in association with the
Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting and the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.
For
more information about the Fukuoka Asian Film Festival, contact Shu Maeda,
festival director, Hirako building 4th floor, 2-4-31, Daimyo, Chuo-ku,
Fukuoka, Japan 810-0041.Tel. 81-92-733-0949.Fax.81-92-733-0948.E-mail: faff@gol.co
Color artwork, archival stills and a producers'
headshot
can be downloaded from our Electronic Press Kit at:
http://www.resisters.com/epk.htm
