Following a sold-out screening as part of the 2017 Berkeley Video & Film Festival (BVFF), the documentary film, THE ITO SISTERS, will have an encore screening at the East Bay Media Center on Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 2:00 p.m.

Winner of a Grand Festival Award at the BVFF, THE ITO SISTERS captures the rarely told stories of the earliest Japanese immigrants to the United States and their American-born children. In particular, the film focuses on the experiences of Issei (or immigrant) and Nisei (or first generation born in the US) women, whose voices have largely been excluded from American history.

The three sisters at the heart of the film – Nancy, Lillian and Hedy – are memorable and engaging characters, who in their 80s and 90s share stories of humor, hardship and heartbreak, dating back to their father’s immigration from Japan to the US in 1897. They offer a rare first-hand account of their family’s struggle to become American, in the face of a series of natural and man-made disasters. The family’s chronicle is set against the backdrop of the Anti-Japanese Movement, a 60-year campaign by politicians, journalists, landowners, labor leaders and others that culminated in the evacuation and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II.

THE ITO SISTERS is written, directed and produced by Antonia Grace Glenn and edited and produced by Gregory Pacificar, with original music by Dave Iwataki. The film features scholar commentary from Evelyn Nakano Glenn (UC Berkeley), Dorinne Kondo (USC), Michael Omi (UC Berkeley) and Jere Takahashi (UC Berkeley).

The film has received press coverage from the program A Rude Awakening on KPFA 94.1 FM (Bay Area); NBC Bay Area’s weekly public affairs series, Asian Pacific America with Robert Handa (upcoming); the East Bay Times; the Marin Independent Journal; and Nikkei West. Future screenings will be held at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose; the Stockton Japanese American Citizens League’s Day of Remembrance; the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles; and other sites.

For more information, please visit the ITO SISTERS website at: www.itosisters.com. Director Antonia Grace Glenn may be reached at antonia_glenn@yahoo.com or (510) 847-0898.