JANM’s ‘Life Interrupted’ DVD Awarded Outstanding Film
Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007

The Arkansas camp reunion film won a 2007 Silver Telly Award.

Courtesy of JANM
Grandmother and granddaughter at opening of “Lasting Beauty” art exhibition in Little Rock, Ark., in 2004.

The “Life Interrupted: Reunion and Remembrance in Arkansas” DVD, created by the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center of the Japanese American National Mu­seum, earned a 2007 Silver Telly Award in the outstanding non-broadcast video production category, the highest honor presented by a judging panel of accom­plished industry professionals.

This is the 28th year that the Telly Awards have been presented, honoring outstanding TV commercials, programs, film, video and web productions. A record 14,362 entries were received by the judg­ing committees and less than 10 percent earn the highest honor of a Silver Telly.

The Watase Media Arts Center has been awarded several Bronze Telly Awards previously, but this is its first Silver Telly Award. The National Museum’s production, “Life Interrupted: Reunion and Remem­brance in Arkansas,” is the culmination and documentation of a three-year project, Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas.

“Life Interrupted” was a partnership between the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and the Japanese American National Museum with major funding provided by the Winthrop Rock­efeller Foundation. The project consisted of a national conference, “Camp Connec­tions: A Conversation About Civil Rights and Social Justice in Arkansas,” that drew over 1,200 people to Little Rock, Ark., in 2004, the opening of eight exhibitions in venues around Little Rock, the develop­ment of a documentary, “In Time of Fear” that examines the Japanese American World War II experience in Arkansas, and the writing of a children’s book. A strong component of the project was the training of master teachers and the development of curriculum so that the story of Japanese American incarcera­tion during the war will be taught in Ar­kansas schools for years to come.

The DVD includes video of Arkansas students and teachers sharing their newly discovered knowledge of a little-known chapter of their state’s history when the U.S. government unconstitutionally incar­cerated nearly 16,000 Japanese Americans in two domestic concentration camps within the state during World War II. It also includes keynote speeches by U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, actor George Takei, Lt. Governor Win Rockefeller, U.S. Senator Mark Pryor and others. The video also documents the return of many former inmates to the sites of the World War II camps, many having not visited for over 60 years.

“Life Interrupted: Reunion and Remembrance in Arkansas” was pro­duced by Kaleigh Komatsu and edited by Komatsu, Akira Boch and Masaki Miyagawa. For more information, go to www.tellyawards.com