Old Man River

Mar 3, 1999

1h 14m

★ 10.0

Winner of Cinequest and Vermont Film Festivals and the American Cinema Editors Eddy Award for Best Edited Documentary.

Overview

Documentary film version of the stage show in which actress Cynthia Gates Fujikawa explores the story of her father, actor Jerry Fujikawa, who had a long career in films and television, most often as a stereotyped Asian. The daughter, in the course of searching out her late father's history, discovers many things that she had not known, among them that her father had spent time in Manzanar, the internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, that he had had a family prior to hers, and that somewhere out there was a sister she had never known existed.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

716 Productions

Old Man River Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Himself

Jerry Fujikawa

Herself

Cynthia Gates Fujikawa

During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.

0.0

Exergo

May 4, 2024

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

7.8

The Rape of Recy Taylor

May 30, 2019

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story.

6.3

Victory in the West

May 7, 1941

A Nazi propaganda film about the lead up to World War II and Germany's success on the Western Front. Utilizes newsreel footage of battles and fell into disfavour with propaganda minister Goebbels because of it's lack of emphasis on Adolf Hitler.

0.0

Salty Dog Blues

Jan 1, 2012

The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronicling the lives of these men and women who, with a median age of 82, are beset with a host of life-threatening illnesses, the movie tells how they navigated issues of racism, disparities in the workplace, gender and familial relations.

7.5

Nazi Death Camp: The Great Escape

May 12, 2014

The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.

7.8

Mein Kampf

Apr 24, 1960

Using exclusively archival footage, this documentary traces the rise and collapse of the Third Reich, from Adolf Hitler’s early years to the devastation of Europe and his suicide in 1945. Directed by Erwin Leiser, the film draws heavily on material produced and preserved by the Nazi propaganda apparatus to confront the mechanisms, imagery, and consequences of totalitarian power.

6.4

Why We Fight: Prelude to War

May 27, 1942

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.

5.9

Report from the Aleutians

Jul 30, 1943

A documentary propaganda film produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps about the Aleutian Islands Campaign during World War II. The film opens with a map showing the strategic importance of the island, and the thrust of the 1942 Japanese offensive into Midway and Dutch Harbor. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

8.2

The Light of Dawn: The Normandy Landings

Jun 6, 2014

The Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 were pivotal to the outcome of WW2. We learn when Churchill and Roosevelt first proposed the operation and how preparations started—finishing with the key events of D-Day and the far-reaching effects of its outcome.

No Image Available

0.0

Action on the Beach

Sep 1, 1964

Behind the scenes look at the D-Day special effects created in filming The Americanization of Emily (1964).

7.5

The Last Days

Oct 23, 1998

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

0.0

High Fidelity: The Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet

Sep 15, 1989

Relationships, rehearsals, performances, hobbies, and family life of the members of the Guarneri String Quartet.

No Image Available

0.0

The Battle of Shanghai

Aug 13, 1937

Informed by the conviction that film was a means to advocate patriotism, Lai established China Sun Motion Picture Company in the early 1920s. He teamed up with friends to follow Dr Sun, traversing provinces for several years and filming precious historical moments such as Sun's inspection of the country and the Northern Expedition led by Chiang Kai-shek after the death of Sun. Some of those footage was edited into A Page of History, available to the public today, albeit deteriorated and incomplete. The Battle of Shanghai records the famous conflict at the beginning of the war in 1937 when, fervently resisting the invading Japanese army, 800 soldiers defended a warehouse until the very last moment. Shot by Lai and his team at the risk of death, the film is now an invaluable visual document in Chinese modern history.

6.9

Stalin and the Katyn Massacre

Feb 18, 2020

The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.

No Image Available

0.0

1337 Mennesker

Mar 11, 1946

No overview available.

8.2

Night and Fog

Jan 29, 1956

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

9.0

Britain's Greatest Pilot: The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown

Jun 1, 2014

Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown recounts his flying experiences, encounters with the Nazis and other adventures leading up to and during the Second World War. Illustrated with archive footage and Captain Brown's own photos.

0.0

WWII: Saving the Reality

Jan 7, 2013

See Kenneth W. Rendell's collection of over 6,000 artifacts that range from the end of World War I and the rise of Nazism to the start of World War II and the fight in Europe and the Pacific.

8.0

Once My Mother

Jul 24, 2014

Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates why her Polish mother abandoned her and uncovers the truth behind her mother's wartime escape from a Siberian gulag, leaving Sophia to confront her own capacity for forgiveness.

Old Man River

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Old Man River Trailers