PACOIMA — The San Fernando Valley JACL hosted a screening of two documentaries on Oct. 28 at the San Fernando Valley Japanese American Community Center with about 160 people attending.
Ann Kaneko and Sharon Yamato’s “A Flicker in Eternity” is about Stanley Hayami, a gifted teenager who was interned at Heart Mountain in Wyoming and died while serving with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 19-year-old left behind illustrated journals documenting his thoughts about life and the future.
Yamato’s “Out of Infamy” profiles the late Michi Nishiura Weglyn, a successful costume designer who left show business to write the 1976 classic “Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps” and become a civil rights advocate.
In addition to San Fernando JACL President Brian Moriguchi, the audience included Ventura County JACL President Anne Chilcott, who called the films “wonderful” and “thought-provoking.”
The day before, Kaneko and Yamato showed “A Flicker in Eternity” at the U.N. Association Film Festival in Palo Alto, where it was well received. Yuriko Gamo Romer’s “Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful,” a documentary about 99-year-old judo master Keiko Fukuda, was also screened.