History and Memory

History and Memory

woman filmmaker, documentary, history, experimental

A film I taught with and still do because of Tajima's amazing mix of documentary, fiction, history, art, and feminism.

1991

The film draws from a variety of sources: Hollywood spectacle, government propaganda, newsreels, memories of the living, and sprits of the dead, as well as Tajiri's own intuitions of a place she has never visited, but of which she has a memory. More than simply calling attention to the gaps in the story of the Japanese American internment, this important film raises questions about collective history - questions that prompt Tajiri to daringly re-imagine and re-create what has been stolen and what has been lost. (Kanopy)

Rea Tajiri