The award was presented at the closing night ceremony on May 10 by Mike Takeuchi, programming manager of the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Representing the decision of the jury, Takeuchi said that “Pilgrimage” combined graphically enhanced historical images with contemporary footage and music that created a fresh new look in documentary filmmaking. “Pilgrimage” has also been featured at the Newport Beach Film Festival and other festivals throughout California, as well as in Chicago, Oregon, New Jersey, and Oklahoma.
With a hip music track, never-before-seen archival footage and a story-telling style that features both young and old, “Pilgrimage” is the first film to show how the World War II camps were reclaimed by the Japanese American community and how the Manzanar Pilgrimage now has fresh meaning for diverse generations of people.
Jeff Chang, author of the critically acclaimed book on hip hop, “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop,” called the film, “A powerfully moving piece on the dehumanization and dislocations of war, and the community and hope that can be found in resistance.”
Nakamura is a UCLA Asian American Studies graduate who is currently in the master’s degree program in Social Documentation at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he is working on a documentary on the cultural and artistic legacy of the early American movement. “Pilgrimage” was produced in part by grants from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and the UCLA Center for Community Partnerships.
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