Topaz (1945)

Directed by

Dave Tatsuno

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

48 min

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 4 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This film shows daily life inside a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. It was shot secretly by an internee using a hidden camera.

observationalintimatehistoricalrestrainedquietly defiantunderstatedpersonaldocumentary-style

What happens

Topaz is a 1945 documentary film, shot illegally by internee Dave Tatsuno (1913–2006), (though with the assistance of members of the camp staff), which documented life at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah during World War II. Tatsuno went through a unique and challenging filming process in order to produce his movie due to lack of freedom within the internment camps that hindered his ability to film his experiences. The film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress in 1996, and was the second amateur film ever selected for the National Film Registry (after the "Zapruder" film of the JFK assassination). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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