American Pastime (film)
American Pastime is a 2007 fictional film set in the Topaz War Relocation Center, a Utah prison camp which held thousands of people during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
| American Pastime | |
|---|---|
DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Desmond Nakano |
| Written by | Desmond Nakano Tony Kayden |
| Produced by | Tom Gorai Arata Matsushima Barry Rosenbush David Skinner Terry Spazek Kerry Yo Nakagawa |
| Starring | Gary Cole Aaron Yoo Jon Gries Masatoshi Nakamura Judy Ongg |
| Cinematography | Matthew Williams |
| Edited by | Mark Yoshikawa |
| Music by | Joseph Conlan |
Release date |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
While the film is a dramatic narrative, it is based on true events and depicts life inside the internment camps, where baseball was one of the major diversions from the reality of the internees' lives. Producer Kerry Yo Nakagawa has said that a particular inspiration was Kenichi Zenimura and his family's experience at the Gila River War Relocation Center, where Zenimura led the construction of a baseball field and of a league of internee baseball teams that played there. Location scenes were filmed in bleak, desolate land, not far from the site of the actual internment camp.