Sacramento Japanese Film Festival

The Sacramento Japanese Film Festival began as a one day festival, Japanese Movies at the Crest, in 2005. In 2010 it grew to a three-day festival with five films. In 2011, it had expanded to six films. Seven feature films and a documentary short were screened in 2012. Sacramento Japanese Film Festival is one of only four film festivals in the continental United States which dedicates itself exclusively to Japanese cinema.

The film festival receives its tax exempt status through the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church.

Festival Schedule:

Friday, July 20
-7:30pm: Mumon: The Land of Stealth

Saturday, July 21
-11:30am: Sister of the Gion
-2pm: In This Corner of the World
-4:30pm: Oh Lucy!
-7:45pm: After the Storm

Sunday, July 22
-2pm: Tokyo Family
-5pm: The Ito Sisters: An American Story

The closing night film, The Ito Sisters, is set in the agricultural communities of the Sacramento Delta. 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 and others that culminated in the forced removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II.