Wings of Defeat (特攻) followed by a Q&A session with producer

Wings of Defeat (特攻) followed by a Q&A session with producer

Linda Hoaglund - Producer/Writer

Monday, April 19, 2010 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Auditorium (Room 101), Henry R. Luce Hall See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 6511

Wings of Defeat 特攻 (tokko): Directed by Risa Moritmoto Produced by Linda Hoaglund and Risa Morimoto 2007 USA/Japan, English and Japanese with English subtitles, 90min) Internationally, Kamikaze pilots remain a potent metaphor for fanaticism. In Japan, they are largely revered for their selfless sacrifice. Yet few outside Japan know that hundreds of kamikaze pilots survived the war. By the spring of 1945, when all Japanese planes were reassigned to kamikaze (Tokkotai) attacks, Japan could no longer defend its airspace and its naval fleet was demolished. Old airplanes and inadequate training resulted in many failed engines, leaving scores of pilots stranded. When Japan surrendered, hundreds of kamikaze trainees were awaiting sortie orders that never arrived. Through rare interviews with surviving kamikaze pilots, we learn that the military demanded pilots volunteer to give up their lives. Retracing their journeys from teenagers to doomed pilots, a complex history of brutal training and ambivalent sacrifice is revealed. As U.S. firebombs incinerated its major cities and the country ran out of weapons and fuel, Japan’s military government refused to accept the reality that it could no longer fight. Instead they sent thousands of pilots off to targets nearly impossible to reach. Sixty years later, survivors in their eighties tell us about their training, their mindsets, their experiences in a kamikaze cockpit and what it meant to survive when thousands of their fellow pilots had died. Their stories insist we set aside our preconceptions to relive their all too human experiences with them. Ultimately, they help us question what responsibilities a government at war has to its soldiers and to its people. Linda Hoaglund (producer/writer) is the film advisor for the Japan Society in New York. Born and raised in Japan, the daughter of American missionary parents, she attended Japanese public schools. A graduate of Yale College (‘79), after working as a bilingual news producer for Japanese television, she joined an independent American film production company as a producer. She has subtitled 150 Japanese films. She represents Japanese directors and artists and serves as an international liaison for producers. In 2004, she received a commendation from the Foreign Minister of Japan for her work promoting Japanese film abroad.

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Region: 
Japan