“The Blue Jay” (2023) will be screened on Friday, Dec. 5, at 4 p.m. at the Culver Theater, 9500 Culver Blvd. in Culver City, as part of the Culver City Film Festival.
During World War II, Japanese Americans are incarcerated in a camp located on an Indigenous reservation. A Japanese American police chief forms an unlikely friendship with a Mohave Indian.
The cast includes Lee Shorten, Ajuawak Kapashesit, Ayako Karasawa and Chris Tashima.
Writer/director Marlene Shigekawa also produced a feature documentary, “For the Sake of the Children,” which has screened throughout the U.S. and Canada. She is the executive director of the Poston Community Alliance, a nonprofit organization that preserves the legacy of the former Poston incarceration camp in Arizona.
Her published work includes children’s books about her family’s incarceration experience, “Blue Jay in the Desert” and “Welcome Home Swallows.” Her high-tech work in Silicon Valley led to another book, “Succeeding in High Tech: A Guide to Building Your Career.”
She earned a B.A. in English from UC Riverside and a M.S. in counseling from the CSU East Bay.
Tickets available at the door or online at: https://www.culvercityfilmfestival.com. Inquiries can be sent to marshigproductions@gmail.com.