When one thinks about film festivals in Canada, the Toronto International Film Festival might first come to mind. It has become North America’s biggest festival, ranked second behind the time-honoured Cannes Film. Yet this past July, a new festival named Kokoro began in Toronto. It “promised to delve into the Japanese Canadian community’s heart, warming, breaking, and strengthening it in equal measure.”1
Over two days in July, eleven films dating from 1977 to 2022 slowly unveiled the generational shifts in the transforming perspectives and identities from Issei to Gosei. The festival also showcased different kinds of filmmaking from documentaries to animations to experimental shorts created by nine Japanese Canadian moviemakers. Three panel discussions also addressed the themes presented in the films.
What was most poignant to me is how each generation still grapples with the ongoing intergenerational trauma wrought by the Federal government’s dispersal and internment of 21,000 coastal Japanese Canadians during World War II. The weekend film festival revealed the generational shifts in outlooks that have taken place since 1942.
The Impetus For the Festival
Jesse Nishihata (1929-2006)
Cofounder of the Kokoro Film Festival and president of the Toronto National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi explained to me why she wanted to create this showcase in an email to me dated September 14, 2024. She had become aware that many contemporary JC filmmakers did not know about the pioneering documentary work of Nisei Jesse Nishihata.2 He worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1966 to 1978 as a producer and director. There, he created the first documentary shown throughout the country about the JC WWII experience, Watari Dori: A Bird of Passage (1973), based on his own family history.
Unusual for the era, Nishihata also documented the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities in Canada starting in the early 1960s. He empathized with their maltreatment by the government, seeing parallels with how the JC community had been historically wronged. As Kobayashi explained, “Ensuring his work is not forgotten also aligns with the Toronto NAJC commitment to concrete steps in the shared journey of Truth and Reconciliation [with Indigenous Peoples].”
The Inquiry Film (1977) by Jesse Nishihata
One result of Nishihata’s ongoing interest in Indigenous issues was revealed in his award-winning documentary, The Inquiry Film, which kicked off the Kokoro Film Festival. In it, he exposed how the Canadian government and energy corporations sought to challenge Indigenous peoples’ rights and livelihoods by proposing to build a natural gas pipeline clear through their sovereign Western Arctic region. Nishihata gave “voice to the voiceless” by showing the personal testimonies of the Indigenous peoples speaking out for themselves at the Inquiry.
To further support them, he depicted how their everyday livelihoods—hunting, trapping, fishing, and housing—depended on preserving their sovereign land. Nishihata’s timely broadcast of his documentary on CBC-TV helped bring the contentious issue of Indigenous rights to the nation. After the inquiry ended, a ten-year moratorium was placed on the project, and it was eventually abandoned in 2017 due to pricing and extensive regulatory issues.3
Lastly, such ground-breaking documentaries as Watori Dori and The Inquiry Film depicted a shift in attitude from what was stereotypically expected from the previous Issei generation’s notions of “shigata nai” or “it can’t be helped.” Nishihata’s work aired nationally, portraying what would become the fighting spirit of generations of JC Sansei and Yonsei filmmakers to follow, and was illustrated at this festival.
Sansei
Watari Dori: A Bird of Passage(1998) by Linda Ohama
The second film shown was Linda Ohama’s Watari Dori: A Bird of Passage, coincidentally sharing its title with Nishihata’s earlier work. It told the story of two women who met in the Tashme internment camp during WWII: one a young Nisei student and the other a Euro-Canadian teacher. Their paths diverged after the war.
The Canadian-born student, Irene (Kato) Tsuyuki, and her Issei parents had been dispersed and interned in Tashme during the war. Afterwards, the Canadian government gave them one of two options: be exiled to Japan or move east of the Canadian Rockies away from their West Coast homes. (Note: these people were not allowed to return until after1949.) Irene’s family relocated to Japan, forcing her to relinquish her Canadian citizenship and natural-born rights. Ohama detailed Irene’s difficulties in reclaiming both aspects upon her return to Canada in 1957. (Note: Coastal JCs were forced to sell all of their belongings—fishing vessels, farms, homes, automobiles, household goods, etc. at very low prices to fund their later incarceration in abandoned mining towns or internment camps. This left the Tsuyuki family and other coastal JCs families with very little savings.)
The filmmaker then revealed how Irene and her former teacher, Winifred Awmack, stayed in touch through correspondence over the years. Later, Ohama captures the moment when the two are together in person for the first time in 50 years. Together, they return to what remains of the Tashme internment camp, where they first came to know one another. Here, the two reminisce about their past and the time they once shared. Thus, like the Japanese phrase that refers to migratory birds, watari dori, they have come full circle and returned to their place of beginning.
A Sorry State (2013) by Mitch Miyagawa
The biracial Sansei filmmaker, Mitch Miyagawa, presented a unique perspective influenced by his multi-ethnic background. He was born to a Nisei father and a Euro-Canadian mother. He subsequently gained stepparents of Chinese and Indigenous descent after his parents’ remarriages. As a result, Miyagawa watched the Canadian government issue three apologies to his extended family as he matured into an adult and became a father himself. The first came in 1998, when he was 17 and the government acknowledged the democratic betrayal and unlawful mistreatment of JCs during WWII.4 The second apology occurred in 2006 when he was 25, regarding the Head Tax levied on Chinese immigrants (1885-1923) and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, largely barring Chinese people from entering Canada until 1947. Lastly, in 2008 when Miyagawa was 28, the government apologized to his extended family for a third time for its abject abuse towards Indigenous peoples.
Beginning with the premise his extended family may be one of the most apologized to in the nation because of their unique intermarriages, his documentary pursued what these national government apologies might have meant not only to his ethnically diverse elders, his growing children and extended family, but to the nation of Canada itself.5 He journeys across Canada to interview his parents, stepparents, and relatives to uncover their painful pasts and visit the sites of their buried memories.
What Miyagawa discovered was a spectrum of reactions from his extended family regarding the government’s apologies, ranging from anger to acceptance to denial. He concluded, “Government apologies are a window to the real history of Canada, and a reflection about what we value now as a nation. … They can be powerful or meaningless, they can heal or hurt. I wanted to touch on that universal experience….”6
Revisionist scholars offer this view: the nation’s repeated apologies are political tactics towards marginalized peoples to appease them, the government’s desire to be absolved of its historical injustices and to create a more positive public image for itself.7 Journalists add another cultural interpretation of the Canadian “sorry,” given the term is endemic to everyday national exchanges—it functions not solely as an apology but also as a remnant of British colonial rule and its mannerisms.8 Drawing from my experience since relocating to Toronto in 2007, I believe the government’s apologies effectively reflect both attributes.
Yonsei
One Big Hapa Family (2010) by Jeff Chiba Stearns
During his upbringing in a small Canadian town, biracial Yonsei filmmaker and animator Jeff Chiba Stearns felt that “being mixed was why I was getting picked on or why I felt like an outsider.”9 What he discovered was how much the Canadian WWII experience had not only impacted his Issei great-grandparents but also trickled down to his Nisei grandparents, then to his own Sansei mother and Euro-Canadian father, later to himself, his siblings, cousins, and to his own children.
While attending his Sansei mother’s 2006 Koga family reunion, Stearns noticed no one in the generations after his Nisei grandparents had married partners of Japanese ancestry. Curious about why this was the case, he went on a four-year quest to discover some answers.
“No one [in my family] really saw themselves as being interracially married. … [they saw] themselves as just being Canadians marrying Canadians. …my [Sansei] mother and her sisters never learned to speak Japanese. They didn’t eat a lot of Japanese food and they were brought up very western.”10
Further research revealed those of Japanese origin constituted only 0.35 percent of Canada’s population (and are the most integrated Asian ethnic group in the country. The ‘outmarriage’ rate of the Sansei generation was 74%and the Yonsei generation 90%, leaving most of their descendants with one-quarter Japanese ancestry.11
Some JCs might take these statistics as a negative downturn, but Stearns concludes otherwise. Being ‘mixed’ represents for him not a dilution but a vibrant shift and a source of strength within the JC community and Canada. He argues, “We need to start celebrating the changing landscape of Canadian identity through intermarriage and mixing!”12 Perhaps this is even more true given in 2021, immigrants constituted 23% of the national population, one of the highest percentages globally.13
The Weatherman and the Shadow Boxer (2014) by Randall Okita
The filmmaker Randall Okita demonstrates how contemporary digital media creates new communicative forms in his dramatic awarding-winning short, The Weatherman and the Shadow Boxer. He abstracts his visual narrative and main characters through distinctive camera work, animation and art direction.
Provocatively, he obscures any specific ethnic identity or explicit historical reference regarding his two main protagonists, perhaps to universalize his allegory. He creates two metaphorical characters, the Weatherman and Shadow Boxer, two brothers who cope with an unnamed traumatic event they experienced together, though each remembers and reacts to it differently. Although Okita never specifies the event, I inferred—as might other NAJC members in the Toronto audience, Canada’s second-largest JC postwar community—that the brothers’ sense of unease is linked to their ancestors’ experiences with racism and internment.
As the brothers grow into adulthood, each develops separate coping mechanisms to adapt to their shared secret. The Weatherman looks forward and tries to forecast the future. He wants to look good, fit in, and be well-liked. The Shadow Boxer looks backward, haunted and fighting the past. He rejects fitting into society or keeping up appearances.
Thus, Okita shows how siblings can respond differently to the same disturbing event within their own family. Many of us audience members could relate to his allegory, having grown up unaware of our ancestors’ WWII traumas. We, too, sensed something was amiss and coped and adapted as best we could.
Conclusions
Spanning three generations from 1977–2014, clearly the Japanese Canadian dispersal and internment grand narrative depicts a transformation in the five films I have chosen to highlight here. (For other films in the Festival, see the festival program.)
As Lynn Kobayashi explained to me why the choices were made in her email dated September 14, 2024, “It…was a quick way to learn about our history…. The multigenerational selection of films offered nuanced perspectives of cultural, historical and emotional dimensions of representation. There are as many stories as there are Japanese Canadians and there is a tendency to get stuck in the ‘one story.’”
Indeed, the Kokoro Film Festival’s diverse selection highlighted how younger generations of JC filmmakers interpreted and reshaped their ancestors’ lingering WWII experiences. As many Isseis and Niseis had not shared or documented their historical experiences, these filmmakers uncovered and reinterpreted their pasts for future generations. They shed light on previously untold events their ancestors experienced and pointed to what descendants may face going forward. They aimed to have their audiences appreciate the survivors’ subterranean memories and nurture a shared empathy, not only for their ancestors but for themselves as well.
Thus, when these Sansei and Yonsei moviemakers presented their visual stories during this one July weekend, they not only contributed to the JC cultural landscape but to the broader Canadian one as well. So, it is my hope this first film festival inspires the hearts, minds, and spirits of future Japanese Canadian filmmakers, paving the way for a second Kokoro Film Festival!
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Notes
1. Nikkei Voice, September 2024, Page 9.
2. “Jesse Nishihata Visual Storyteller,” The Bulletin Geppo, April 2, 2014.
3. “Berger Commission,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, November 12, 2020; James H. Marsh and Nathan Baker, “Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Proposals,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, February 7, 2006.
4. James H. Marsh, “Japanese Canadian Internment: Prisoners in Their Own Country,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, February 23, 2012.; “September 22, 1988 - Routine Proceedings, Visible Minorities,” Lipad.
5. “Film Screening: A Sorry State with Mitch Miyagawa,” Galt Museum & Archives, October 25, 2013.
6. “New TVO documentary,” Cision.
7. Carrie Barr and Jackie Gillberry, “‘Sorry...I’m Canadian’ an Analysis of When Canadians Use the Word ‘Sorry’.”; “Canada’s new 'dark chapter': So many national apologies for past injustice, they’ve become insincere,” National Post, May 23, 2018.; Michael Adams, “Canada is sorry – a lot. We shouldn’t apologize for that,” Environics Institute, July 4, 2023.; “Why do Canadians apologize so much?,” CBC, January 13, 2017.
8. “Apology Act, 2009, S.O. 2009, c. 3,” e-Laws, April 22, 2009.
9. Kirie Ventura, “Jeff Chiba Stearns on Mixedness, Evolution, and Passing the Torch,” Joy Source, April 9, 2024.
10. John Endo Greenaway, “Jeff Chiba Stearns – One Big Hapa Family,” The Bulletin Geppo, December 14, 2010.
11. Ann Sunahara, “Japanese Canadians,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, January 31, 201; Japanese Canadian History: General Overview; Maryka Omatsu, “Japanese Canadian Redress: The Toronto Story Toronto NAJC: Afterword,” Toronto NAJC.
12. Greenaway, “Jeff Chiba Stearns,” The Bulletin Geppo, December 14, 2010.
13. An Immigration System for Canada’s Future -Context, Government of Canada.; “Immigrants make up the largest share of the population in over 150 years and continue to shape who we are as Canadians,” Statistics Canada.
© 2025 Catherine Jo Ishino
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