First Love

06.07 - Posted by Editor

"First Love" Music Video 5.4 mb, 5 minutes, DV color, 2000 Directed by Stann Nakazono Starring Chris Tashima and Keiko Kashiwagi

Synopsis
 
1944. It's the height of World War II, where America is fighting on fronts, in the Pacific and in Europe. A young woman (Keiko Kashiwagi) is saying her last good-byes to her first love, a soldier (Chris Tashima), before being sent off to the front.
    However, there is a little twist to the scenario: They're both Americans of Japanese descent, and this love scene is taking place behind barbed wire. Two years earlier, over 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were uprooted from their homes and incarcerated in 10 concentration camps spread out in the most desolate parts of the United States. All because of "looking like the enemy."
    To further prove their loyalty, many Japanese-American men ("Nisei," or second-generation, as they were called) volunteered to join the Army in what became the 100th/442 Regimental Combat Team. Though they helped win the war on the European front and became the most decorated American military unit during World War II, they were also the most decimated, losing more than two-thirds of their regiment.
    The music video is a dedication to the grandparents and their children who suffered during those times.
 
Filmmaker Bio
 
Stann Nakazono, a Sansei (third-generation Japanese-American), first got into film at the ripe age of 16 directing a Super-8 short, "Life of a Samurai," for a high school project. (He got an A+.)
    At 17, was employed at Visual Communications, the Asian-Pacific American production company and media center based in Los Angeles. Became part of the camera team on the first feature-length produced and directed by Asian Americans, "Hito Hata: Raise the Banner," a tribute to the first Japanese American pioneers in this country (which won a prize at the 1980 Houston International Film Festival).
    After various stints in student films at USC, UCLA and the American Film Institute (AFI), he produced, directed, shot and edited the 1984 documentary short, "E-Z Rock: Asian American Breakdancer," which screened in Asian-American film festivals in Los Angeles and New York.
    Stann became a director-slash-producer on several award-winning cable shows and on industrial and music video before he produced his first feature film, "Hang Your Dog in the Wind." The feature had its world premiere at the 1997 Slumdance Experience (which he co-founded) at Park City, Utah, the alternative to the alternative of the Sundance Film Festival. (www.slumdance.com)
    "Hang Your Dog in the Wind" has been shown in other film festivals in New York, Chicago, Orlando and Europe. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1997 Florida Film Festival.
    Two years later, he returns to Park City during Sundance with VanDance99! , driving up and down Park City showing the trailer of his newest film, "Much Adobo About Nothing" out of a rented van. After a world premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival, it later played a successful five-week midnight run in Los Angeles and New York in 2000.
    Stann also produced the acclaimed live action/animated short "An I Within," which won Kodak's Best Cinematography Award at the 1999 Florida Film Festival.
    His recent directorial effort, "First Love," a music video about the Japanese-American internment camps, premiered at the New York Asian American International Film Festival in July 2000 and screened at the Directors' Guild of America in Los Angeles in 2001.
    Stann can be reached through his website, www.traaxproduction.com, or at stannak@loop.com
 
Download Quicktime to play the film.