History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige
Essential Documentaries
•
32m
Directed by Rea Tajiri | 32 mins | 1991
A groundbreaking, highly influential work by the Chicago-born visual artist and filmmaker Rea Tajiri, this poetic tapestry of the personal and the political reckons with the internment of some 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II, among them members of the director’s own family. Drawing upon images in mainstream media, family memories, photographs, and Super 8 footage, Rea reflects on the difficulty of representing the past, particularly one that has been elided from the historical record.
Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Up Next in Essential Documentaries
-
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Directed by Thom Andersen | 173 mins | 2003
Los Angeles, so the story goes, became the nation’s movie capital in part because of its proximity to a variety of different landscapes, easily re-cast as other, far-flung places. But how has the city represented itself on screen? Thom Anderson’s semina... -
My Best Fiend
Directed by Werner Herzog | 99 mins | 1999
Amidst insults hurled, tantrums thrown, and some literal shots fired, Herzog’s collaboration with the notoriously explosive Klaus Kinski produced five indelible films, from 1972’s "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" to 1987’s "Cobra Verde". “Every gray hair on m... -
Nuts!
Leaving October 1
Directed by Penny Lane | 79 mins | 2016
Thanks to a preternatural knack for self-promotion and a commitment to the medical possibilities of goat testicles, John Romulus Brinkley, born into poverty in 1885, acquired fame and fortune and very nearly become the governor of Kansas....
