The Films of Kerwin Berk & Remembering Hiroshi Kashiwagi
J-Sei At the Movies with Special Guests Kerwin Berk and Ben Arikawa
Friday, August 13, 6:30 pm via Zoom
Please join us for this special evening with director-writer-producer Kerwin Berk, who will visit with us to discuss his career making films, including The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash (2010), Infinity & Chashu Ramen (2013), and Kikan: The Homecoming (2019).
Kerwin will also join us to remember Hiroshi Kashiwagi, the celebrated and beloved Nisei poet, playwright, writer, and actor who sadly left us in 2019, just shy of his 97th birthday. Hiroshi is the star/featured performer of Kerwin’s “Japantown Trilogy,” and we’ll watch a trailer and shorts, including a moving video tribute to Hiroshi, A Meeting at Tule Lake, by cinematographer Ben Arikawa, who will also be our special guest this evening.
Kerwin has kindly agreed to grant us access to watch Infinity & Chashu Ramen online prior to our meeting on the 13th. We’ll send you the link when you RSVP.
RSVP with “August Movie Night” in the subject line.
You’ll receive Zoom information prior to the event.
About the Filmmakers
KERWIN BERK is a Sansei filmmaker who was born and raised in San Francisco’s Japantown. He is an award-winning journalist who worked at newspapers and wire services in Asia and the United States for more than 20 years. His last stop was at his hometown newspaper – The Chronicle. Today, he is a freelance writer and independent filmmaker who still calls The City his home. He has written, produced, and directed award-winning films and web series, including The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash, Infinity & Chashu Ramen, and Gold Mountain.
https://ikeibifilms.com/
BEN ARIKAWA is a Northern California Sansei. He lives not far from where his paternal grandparents settled to work on a fruit orchard about a hundred years ago. Late in life, he realized that he has a need to tell stories and has been exploring his literary side. Ben has contributed an article to Pacific Citizen and several articles to Discover Nikkei. His stories reflect his experiences as a Japanese American, son, husband, and father. He is also exploring his artistic side as a director of photography for Ikeibi Films on Kikan: The Homecoming (2019), the web series Gold Mountain (2016), and as an actor in Infinity and Chashu Ramen (2013).
J-Sei Movie Night Bento
August 13 Bento
For movie night, you can order specially made obento from My Friend Yuji. Here is this month’s special movie night offering:
- Pork Keema Curry, Zuke Soft Tamago, Mizuna Salad and Rice
Indian style Japanese curry, marinated soft boiled egg, mizuna salad, and rice
$18
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, August 13th. 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.
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.
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.