Contemporary Japanese Cinema
-Outside, Elsewhere, in the Word…-

A screening event of 6 old and new Japanese films took place at USC from February 19th to 21st. Akira Mizuta Lippit, a professor of School of Cinematic Arts at USC, planned the event to introduce contemporary Japanese films. At the event, they screened contemporary films such as “Baton” which was a co-production between Ryuhei Kitamura, a Japanese director, and an animation company from the United States. After the screening, professor Lippit served as a moderator of a panel discussion with Japanese directors who talked about today’s Japanese films. There are great expectations for Japanese films’ continuing global expansion.

Day of Remembrance 2010
-Remembering a Japanese American Hero-

On February 20th, Day of Remembrance 2010 took place at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. The purpose of the event was to look back on the tragic past of the Japanese American internment during World War II. This year, they commemorated Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American who was arrested for refusing to go to the internment camp and led a civil rights movement. Korematsu claimed that it was a violation of the Constitution and sued the government of the United States. He lost the case, but 40 years after the first lawsuit, without giving up his hope, he retried the case again in 1983. And finally the court pronounced a judgment that institutionalization of Japanese Americans represented the violation of the Constitution. The judicial judgment, followed by an official apology and monetary compensation from the U.S. government as well as a Medal of Honor from the Former President Clinton, remade the history of Japanese Americans. This story continues to be told to new generations.