WHAT: Tens of thousands of Japanese women married American soldiers after World War II and landed in 1950s America knowing no one and speaking little English. “Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides” is an award-winning documentary which traces the lives of three Japanese war brides and their tumultuous journeys to America as the young wives of U.S. soldiers and civilians.
Directors Lucy Craft, Karen Kasmauski, and Kathryn Tolbert share the stories of their Japanese mothers, and also their own experiences as mixed-race children who witnessed firsthand their mothers’ struggles. Drawing on personal anecdotes, family photographs and archival footage, “Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight” paints an intimate portrait of the Japanese war brides saga and helps bring to life this often forgotten episode in American and Japanese history.
The film has recently won Best Short Documentary at the Boston Asian American Film Festival, Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, and California Women’s Film Festival. A question-and-answer period with Kathryn Tolbert, one of the film’s directors, follows the film.
WHEN/WHERE: Friday, Feb. 5, from 7-8:30 p.m. at Hawaii Pacific University Aloha Tower (1 Aloha Tower Drive) Multi-Purpose Room.
ADMISSION is free.
