Friday, March 14, 2008

Once again we are proud to be a co-presenter of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival . The first film we are co-presenting is Wings of Defeat.

Location: Sundance Kabuki 4

Time: 7:00 pm

Cost: $11.00

About the film…
For most of us, the recent images of planes crashing into buildings symbolize religious fanaticism and suicidal impulses too alien to understand. In tracing the history of the kamikaze pilots, Wings of Defeat explains how and why the practice played such a compelling role in the previous century’s greatest war. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, discussion of the tokkôtai, or special attack unit—known to Americans as the kamikaze pilots—became taboo. Director Risa Morimoto’s late uncle Toshio was a survivor of that airborne attack corps, but nobody in her family mentioned it. To learn why he chose to join and how he emerged alive from a career that was supposed to end in certain fiery death, Morimoto interviewed men from, as it turned out, hundreds of survivors. Their testimonies poignantly humanize the experience of the 4,000 young men who perished as aviators and gunners in warplanes flown into American ships. Up close, they belie the dominant image of kamikaze pilots as suicidal fanatics bent on dying in a blaze of glory.

As Japan refused to face the grim certainty of its defeat, the suicide attack corps became the secret weapon and symbol for victory, embodying its central military strategy. Most of them were boy pilots, hastily and hellishly trained with a wooden rod. A beautiful animated sequence illustrates how the image of the fearless, valorous kamikaze pilot must have appealed to thousands of young boys eager to fight and die for their country. - Frako Loden

USA , Japan | 2007 | 90 min | Video
In English, Japanese with English subtitles
Directed By: Risa Morimoto
Exec. Producers: Fumiko Hattori Terao/Levine Family Fund
Producers: Risa Morimoto, Linda Hoaglund
Writer: Linda Hoaglund
www.edgewoodpictures.com/wingsofdefeat

About the film festival…
The Center for Asian America Media presents the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) every March. The SFIAAFF is the nation’s largest showcase for new Asian American and Asian films, annually presenting approximately 120 works in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. Since 1982, the SFIAAFF has been an important launching point for Asian American independent filmmakers as well as a vital source for new Asian cinema.