AsiaLENS: AEMS Documentary and Independent Film Series at the Spurlock Museum: Abandoned: The Stories of Japanese War Orphans in The Philippines and China

• Event Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2022
• Time: 7:00 pm (CDT)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free

• Film

Abandoned: The Stories of Japanese War Orphans in The Philippines and China
A film by Hiroyasu Obara.
2020 / 98 minutes

In-person screening. Conversation with scholar Eri Kitada (Rutgers University-New Brunswick).

Addressing issues around family and transnationalism, citizenship and empire, and history and memory across East and Southeast Asia, this documentary film traces forgotten and disappeared Japanese communities in the Philippines and former Manchuria by shedding light on the perspectives of migrants’ children now approaching the end of their lives. Testimonies in the film illuminate the afterlives of communities and families grappling with the legal, economic, and emotional questions of the historically fraught diaspora.

AsiaLENS Film Series

AsiaLENS is a film screening and discussion series offering campus and community audiences an opportunity to view documentary and independent film on issues reflecting contemporary life in Asia.

AsiaLENS screenings are funded in part by the Spurlock Museum's Y.T. Lo and S. de Mundo Lo Scholar's Studio Endowment and B.A. Knight Endowment.