The Media Cafe Series is back in June and will feature Singapore born filmmaker Kagan Goh. Two of his films, "Stolen Memories" and "Breaking the Silence", will be shown together at the Performance Hall inside Richmond Cultural Centre.
Date/Time: Jun 25 2016, 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Richmond, Richmond Cultural Centre
Kagan will be in attendance to share some extraordinary stories behind making these films and his insights on how to bring indie film to a broad audiences.
ABOUT KAGAN GOH
Kagan was born in 1969 in Singapore. He studied film in Toronto at Ryerson Polytechnical University. His controversial documentary film Mind Fuck about the phone sex industry won several awards including TVO Telefest ’96 1st Prize Long Documentary category. For "Stolen Memories" and "Breaking The Silence", Kagan has solicited and garnered the active support and involvement of the Japanese Canadian community. Kagan now resides in Vancouver.
ABOUT THE TWO FILMS
-- "Stolen Memories" is a detective story about filmmaker Kagan Goh’s personal quest to return a photo album that was lost by a Japanese Canadian family during the Japanese internment. Kagan, aided by Mary Seki, his 70-year old detective sidekick, embarked upon a quest to find the rightful owners, find out what happened to them and return their lost photo album to them. Documenting the search as well as redressing the wrongs of the past is a symbolic “homecoming” – coming home in terms of returning to a place of self-acceptance, belonging, wholeness and healing. Stolen Memories reflects deeply rooted issues of prejudice which have affected the Japanese Canadian community throughout the last one hundred years, experienced not just by the family but by the Japanese Canadians who helped in the quest to return the ‘stolen’ photo album. The extraordinary story is a microcosm within the macrocosm of the Japanese Canadian legacy. Check the website: www.stolenmemoriesdocumentary.com
“It’s a very effective way of touching on an important common feature of the internment – loss of much family material due to forced relocation. The personal touch seems a good idea too, as many such documentaries have been a bit distant from the victims.” – Stan Fukawa, former president of the Japanese Canadian National Nikkei Museum
--"Breaking The Silence" is a documentary about Akihide John Otsuji, a Japanese Canadian man who was unjustly imprisoned for defying a racist law called the Dispersal Campaign. After the Japanese internment, the Japanese Canadians were given the choice to either repatriate to Japan or move east of the Rockies. They were not allowed to return to the West Coast. Aki returned to his hometown in Vancouver and was promptly imprisoned and labeled a criminal by the Canadian government. His sister Mary Seki considers him to be a hero for it takes courage to singlehandedly defy an unjust racist law. Breaking The Silence is about Mary Seki’s quest to clear her brother’s name and redress the wrongs of the past.
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