The Films of Yuriko Gamo Romer & U.S.–Japan Relations
J-Sei At the Movies – An evening with filmmaker Yuriko Gamo Romer
Friday, July 16, 6:30 pm via Zoom
Please join us as J-Sei At the Movies continues its tribute to amazing women of Japanese heritage in history and film.
Just before the Tokyo Summer Olympics are scheduled to start on July 23, our evening with special guest Yuriko Gamo Romer will focus on a major theme in her films: breaking barriers and bridging U.S. and Japanese societies through sports and competition. We’ll discuss her current project, Diamond Diplomacy (in production), which charts the 150-year history of the beloved pastime shared by both nations—baseball. We will also talk with Yuriko about her acclaimed 2012 documentary, Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful. Featuring archival footage and close-up interviews, it presents the moving and inspirational story of Keiko Fukuda (1913-2013), a pioneer in Japan and the U.S. who spent her life devoted to the martial art of judo and overcame gender inequality to become the highest-ranking woman in judo history.
Yuriko has kindly agreed to grant us access to watch Mrs. Judo online prior to our meeting on the 16th. We’ll send you the link when you RSVP.
RSVP with “July Movie Night” in the subject line.
You’ll receive Zoom information prior to the event.
About the Filmmaker
YURIKO GAMO ROMER is an award-winning director based in San Francisco. She holds a Master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from Stanford University and is a Student Academy Award winner, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Scholar, and American Association of Japanese University Women Scholar. In June 1999 she started Flying Carp Productions. Her current documentary project, DIAMOND DIPLOMACY, explores the relationship between the United States and Japan through a shared love of baseball.
Romer directed and produced MRS. JUDO: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful the only biographical documentary about Keiko Fukuda (1913-2013), the first woman to attain the 10th degree black belt in judo. MRS. JUDO has traveled to more than 25 film festivals internationally and was awarded the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2013 International Festival of Sport Films in Moscow and broadcast on PBS nationally as part of CAAM’s Japanese American Lives 2014. Additionally, her film Occidental Encounters won numerous awards, among them a Student Academy Award Gold Medal; Heartland FF’s Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award; and National Media Network’s Silver Apple. Romer’s short films include Reflection, Kids will be Kids, Sunnyside of the Slope, Fusion and Friend Ships, a short historical animation about John Manjiro, the inadvertent Japanese immigrant rescued by an American whaling captain.
J-Sei Movie Night Bento
July 16 Bento
For movie night, you can order specially made obento from My Friend Yuji. This month’s special movie night offering has two different items to order:
- Wafu Hambagu/Roasted Corn Salad/Asazuke
Japanese hamburger steak, roasted corn and spring vegetable salad, lightly pickled vegetables and koshihikari rice
$20 - Wafu Chicken & Salmon/Roasted Corn Salad/Asazuke
Roasted chicken and salmon, roasted corn and spring vegetable salad, lightly pickled vegetables and koshihikari rice
$20
Click on the button below to place your order.
You can pick up your meal at the selected pick-up time at J-Sei on Friday, July 16th. Please remember to wear a mask and observe social distance protocol. Thank you!
To order: When you click on the button above, it will take you directly to a pop-up order form on the My Friend Yuji webpage, where you first select a pickup time. In the next window, click anywhere inside the box frame to open another pop-up and select the number of bento you want to order, then click on “Add item” to close the pop-up. Click the “View order” bar at the bottom to confirm your order and click “Continue to payment” to sign in and pay for your order.
Support J-Sei At the Movies
Thanks to you, J-Sei At the Movies recently celebrated its third anniversary! We look forward to more creative programming with educational and inspiring Japanese and Japanese American films. We are especially grateful for the up close and personal chats with filmmakers as we learn so much from the exchange.
We love having a growing and enthusiastic audience. You are the best! We welcome any donations to help us offset costs for Movie Night. Thanks for considering this.
Cathy Park Hong was raised in Los Angeles. She graduated from Oberlin College and has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections, Engine Empire (2012), Dance Dance Revolution (2007), and Translating Mo’um (2002). Hong is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is the poetry editor of The New Republic and is a full professor at Rutgers University.
REA TAJIRI is a filmmaker and visual artist who was born in Chicago, Illinois. She earned her BFA and MFA degree from the California Institute of the Arts in post-studio art. Her ground-breaking, award-winning film, digital video and installation work, has been supported by numerous grants, fellowships and artistic residencies, has been exhibited widely in museums, on television and in international film festivals. Poetic, subtly layered and politically engaged, her work advances the exploration of forgotten histories, multi-generational memory, landscape and the Japanese American experience.
Miyamoto vividly describes her early life in the racialized atmosphere of Hollywood musicals and then her turn toward activism as an Asian American troubadour with the release of A Grain of Sand—considered to be the first Asian American folk album. Her narrative intersects with the stories of Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs, influential in both Asian and Black liberation movements. She tells how her experience of motherhood with an Afro-Asian son, as well as a marriage that intertwined Black and Japanese families and communities, placed her at the nexus of the 1992 Rodney King riots—and how she used art to create interracial solidarity and conciliation.