In Development

SHORT FILMS

MEMORIAL DAY
A 100th/442 Short Film

Based on the play by TIM TOYAMA
Directed by CHRIS TASHIMA

TIM TOYAMA
Playwright, Co-Screenwriter
Tim has had his plays produced at The Complex in Los Angeles, and The Road Theatre Company at the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood. Among them is VISAS AND VIRTUE, which became the Academy Award® winning short film on which he served as Executive Producer. He has served on the Road Theatre's Artistic Board as well as the Literary Committee at East West Players theatre, both in the Los Angeles area. It was in the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute at East West Players that he wrote the play VISAS AND VIRTUE, as well as several other works including INDEPENDENCE DAY, inspired by his own father Zip Toyama's World War II internment camp experience, and which became the basis for the short film, DAY OF INDEPENDENCE. Most recently, he has written a sequel to INDEPENDENCE DAY, following Zip and his teammates Hog and Satch, one year later (1944), as they enlist in the segregated all-Japanese American fighting unit, the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Soon to be a new short film, MEMORIAL DAY will be Cedar Grove Productions’ tribute to the Nisei World War II Veterans who comprised the most highly decorated unit, for its size and length of service, in the history of the U.S. Military.

FEATURE FILMS

THE DESERT CARP
(working title)

Feature Screenplay
Written by DAN KWONG
Story by DAN KWONG, SOJI KASHIWAGI, CHRIS TASHIMA & TIM TOYAMA

SYNOPSIS
Aiji Okada is a 16-year old baseball fanatic who works on the family strawberry farm in California but dreams of glory as a pitcher -- much to the annoyance of his hard-working Afather. When World War II breaks out, Aiji and his family are among the 120,000 Japanese mericans living on the west coast who were incarcerated by the U.S. government in "relocation centers," basically prison camps located in desolate areas of the country.

There Aiji crosses paths with longtime baseball man Hiroshi Sakata and his daughter Grace, who initiate a baseball league to help endure the misery of incarceration. With ingenuity and determination they carve out a diamond in the desert and the national pastime becomes a way for thousands of Japanese Americans to keep their spirits alive behind barbed wire. Meanwhile Aiji and his father continue to struggle with their rocky relationship.

When a friendly exhibition game between the camp All-Stars and the reigning high school State Champions turns into more than just fun, Aiji must rise to meet the challenge. With the help of Hiroshi, Grace and a strange-looking baseball, Aiji discovers what it means to be a team, a family, and an American.

DAN KWONG
Screenwriter
Performance artist, writer and teacher Dan Kwong combines autobiographical storytelling with multimedia, dynamic physical movement, poetry, martial arts, and music. His work has been presented in Bangkok & Chiang Mai Thailand, Hong Kong, Bali, London, Mexico City, and all across the U.S. He is founder and curator of "Treasure in the House," the Asian Pacific American performance and visual art festival presented at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica since 1991.

Kwong has received numerous fellowships including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Art Matters Inc, Brody Arts Fund, Franklin Furnace, LA Cultural Affairs Department, Asia Pacific Performance Exchange, and has been nominated twice for the Alpert Award in the Arts. His forthcoming book, From Inner Worlds to Outer Space: The Solo Multimedia Performances of Dan Kwong is being published by The University of Michigan Press in early summer 2004.

For more info: http://www.dankwong.com.