Rea Tajiri

Ever since the onset of her dementia, reality, dream and nightmare have become intertwined for Rose, making her something like a maverick time traveler. Her filmmaker daughter Rea Tajiri is also her caregiver. In this fond portrait, she visualizes Rose’s spiritual, philosophical and sometimes surprisingly specific stories in the order they come: a non-linear sequence illustrated by her own footage shot over many years, accompanied by snatches of conversations and images from the family archive. Rose’s eventful journey through time is rich with memories and sensitively accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

Ever since the onset of her dementia, reality, dream and nightmare have become intertwined for Rose, making her something like a maverick time traveler. Her filmmaker daughter Rea Tajiri is also her caregiver. In this fond portrait, she visualizes Rose’s spiritual, philosophical and sometimes surprisingly specific stories in the order they come: a non-linear sequence illustrated by her own footage shot over many years, accompanied by snatches of conversations and images from the family archive. Rose’s eventful journey through time is rich with memories and sensitively accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

Ever since the onset of her dementia, reality, dream and nightmare have become intertwined for Rose, making her something like a maverick time traveler. Her filmmaker daughter Rea Tajiri is also her caregiver. In this fond portrait, she visualizes Rose’s spiritual, philosophical and sometimes surprisingly specific stories in the order they come: a non-linear sequence illustrated by her own footage shot over many years, accompanied by snatches of conversations and images from the family archive. Rose’s eventful journey through time is rich with memories and sensitively accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

Ever since the onset of her dementia, reality, dream and nightmare have become intertwined for Rose, making her something like a maverick time traveler. Her filmmaker daughter Rea Tajiri is also her caregiver. In this fond portrait, she visualizes Rose’s spiritual, philosophical and sometimes surprisingly specific stories in the order they come: a non-linear sequence illustrated by her own footage shot over many years, accompanied by snatches of conversations and images from the family archive. Rose’s eventful journey through time is rich with memories and sensitively accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

Ever since the onset of her dementia, reality, dream and nightmare have become intertwined for Rose, making her something like a maverick time traveler. Her filmmaker daughter Rea Tajiri is also her caregiver. In this fond portrait, she visualizes Rose’s spiritual, philosophical and sometimes surprisingly specific stories in the order they come: a non-linear sequence illustrated by her own footage shot over many years, accompanied by snatches of conversations and images from the family archive. Rose’s eventful journey through time is rich with memories and sensitively accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

LORDVILLE extends director Rea Tajiri's on-going examination of ideas of history, place and race, and continues and propels larger conversations within the documentary field. A work spanning categorizations; it is a landscape film, an experimental documentary, an ethnography of place, a personal meditation.

A darkly comic musical about the mystery of death, communication of spirits, and the redemption that comes from knowing the truth. A violent father returns to Earth and wanders the streets in a child's wagon, searching for clues to the cause of his death through his daughter, a homicide detective. When the two finally collide on a downtown street late one night, they are transported to another dimension. The two communicate through dance and music, finally unraveling the cause of their separation and grief.

After a visit from the ghost of her sister, a rebellious 16 year old Japanese American girl hits the road with her boyfriend in search of a better life. Hooking up with activist friends along the way, she comes to an important realization about her past: that her parents were incarcerated in an internment camp during World War II. She detours her road trip, ditches her boyfriend and drives off into the Arizona desert in a determined search for the truth that will set her free.

After a visit from the ghost of her sister, a rebellious 16 year old Japanese American girl hits the road with her boyfriend in search of a better life. Hooking up with activist friends along the way, she comes to an important realization about her past: that her parents were incarcerated in an internment camp during World War II. She detours her road trip, ditches her boyfriend and drives off into the Arizona desert in a determined search for the truth that will set her free.

Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American woman who lived in Harlem for more than 40 years and had a long history of activism on a wide range of issues. Through extensive interviews with family and friends, archival footage, music and photographs, YURI KOCHIYAMA chronicles this remarkable woman’s contribution to social change through some of the most significant events of the 20th century, including the Black Liberation movement, the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, and the Japanese American Redress movement. In an era of divided communities and racial conflict, Kochiyama offered an outstanding example of an equitable and compassionate multiculturalist vision.

Após o ataque japonês à base militar de Pearl Harbor, durante a II Guerra Mundial, o governo dos EUA adota uma política segregacionista: a criação de campos de concentração para a população nipo-americana. Assombrada pelas imagens lacunares de seus familiares, que estavam entre os 120 mil japoneses presos, a diretora tenta recuperar a memória dos dias apagados do registro coletivo.

Após o ataque japonês à base militar de Pearl Harbor, durante a II Guerra Mundial, o governo dos EUA adota uma política segregacionista: a criação de campos de concentração para a população nipo-americana. Assombrada pelas imagens lacunares de seus familiares, que estavam entre os 120 mil japoneses presos, a diretora tenta recuperar a memória dos dias apagados do registro coletivo.

Após o ataque japonês à base militar de Pearl Harbor, durante a II Guerra Mundial, o governo dos EUA adota uma política segregacionista: a criação de campos de concentração para a população nipo-americana. Assombrada pelas imagens lacunares de seus familiares, que estavam entre os 120 mil japoneses presos, a diretora tenta recuperar a memória dos dias apagados do registro coletivo.

Após o ataque japonês à base militar de Pearl Harbor, durante a II Guerra Mundial, o governo dos EUA adota uma política segregacionista: a criação de campos de concentração para a população nipo-americana. Assombrada pelas imagens lacunares de seus familiares, que estavam entre os 120 mil japoneses presos, a diretora tenta recuperar a memória dos dias apagados do registro coletivo.

Off Limits presents an analysis of representations of the Vietnam War, the 1960s, and the Vietnamese characters that have been portrayed in the recent series of films about this subject. I juxtapose a fragment from the film of the same title, made in 1987 about Vietnam in 1968, with a fragment from Easy Rider, a film made in 1968 about America in 1968. A scene is retold from the point of view of a Vietnamese character who in the film had no dialogue, no voice. His story is recounted through visual rolling text, written by myself, and it describes his own death as formulated by the narrative. This text is layered visually over a blue field, which in turn becomes a 'curtain' behind which the images and soundtrack from Easy Rider unfold and play simultaneously in real time underneath. -- Rea Tajiri