Shizue

Produced by: 
Emiko Tonooka, Edited by Nadine Patterson
Year: 
1991
Duration: 
17 min

Emiko Tonooka, a Nisei American woman, traveled to Japan in 1986 to find her unknown half-sister, Shizue. Through storytelling, photography and carefully choreographed video work, a powerful portrait of family emerges when Tonooka's narrative crosses the chasm of time, culture and continents to bear witness as the two siblings attempt to recover their lost histories.

Emiko Tonooka, a Nisei (second generation) Japanese-American woman, is a former teacher longtime community activist who lives in Philadelphia. After Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1942, Emiko was one of the 110,000 Americans who were forced from their homes into internment camps, where they were incarcerated for the war's duration. Her renowned 1978 video, Emi, documents her effort to reclaim another part of her past as she makes a pilgrimage to the place of her wartime internment -- Manzanar, California.

Public Screenings, Broadcasts and Festivals: 

Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) [details not found]