WHO ARE WE?

We are Lewis Films, filmmakers who recently won an Emmy Award for our civil rights documentary film Leveling Lincoln.  We are headed by Director Arden Teresa Lewis whose mother and grandparents were POWs in the Santo Tomas Internment in Manila during Word War II.

Andrew Jordan, Arden Teresa Lewis, Kimberly Woods

WHAT ARE WE ASKING?

$32,000 in Pre-Production costs for our next film, The Last Reunion. The money will be used to cover the costs of traveling with a crew to film interviews, to pay for archival photo and film licensing, production fees, editing, color correcting and sound editing, etc.

WHAT IS THE FILM ABOUT?

“In 1945 General MacArthur liberated my mother and thousands of others after years as POWs in the Santo Tomas Japanese Internment Camp in Manila. For decades afterwards the survivors would gather to remember those years of deprivation and imprisonment sharing stories of starvation and endurance. The gatherings used to number in the hundreds; today their numbers have dwindled down to a few. I wonder, as they age and pass on, will their stories likewise die? This year is the 80th anniversary of their rescue and they are determined to meet again, once more to commemorate when their lives, their childhoods, were interrupted by war. Once again they will gather to share how they persevered, and to remember those who did not. Once again they will pass around the microphone to give testimony, to once again recount a long forgotten history, and hope that their children and grandchildren will keep their memories alive after they’re gone. And I’ll be there to record it all. At each and every gathering. Join me as I tell their stories and attend The Last Reunion.” ~ Arden Teresa Lewis

Karen K. Lewis and her mother Thelma Kern on a ship

after being rescued by General MacArthur from the

Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manilla

WHAT WILL I SEE IN THE FILM?

Our basic outline for the film begins with Karen Lewis, now in her nineties, in Ojai, California, packing for a trip to Sacramento. Helping her pack are her children and grandchildren, several of whom will accompany her on this journey, along with her daughter Arden, who is bringing along a film crew.

The kids laugh at Karen’s small obsessions, especially the constant narration of food, and her plans for food throughout the day. She is sometimes confused by the process, sometimes stubbornly insistent that she knows exactly how to pack and what to pack. And always the plans for food. The grandchildren really have not discovered the trauma of starvation that inhabits the body of their fragile 92 year old matriarch.

As the car fills and they hit the road, the purpose of her trip is revealed. Karen will be attending what will most likely be the last reunion of Santo Tomas Internment Camp survivors.

Karen was incarcerated by the Japanese in Santo Tomas Internment Camp along with 4000 other civilians for three years. The fact that she is alive and has grandchildren is a miracle. She is one of a group of child survivors of War that still try to gather at reunions to keep their stories and lessons alive. They are living examples of “collateral” damage. They know what it feels like to be a pawn in the power struggle of War. Most are passing on into anonymity. 

Karen wonders if this reunion is worth it. The two Gen Z young adults navigate on their phones the dangerous and increasingly violent world they exist in while discovering a grandmother who knows firsthand what it is to be an innocent civilian, a child, kidnapped, starved, imprisoned, and hated by your oppressors.

As the car rolls down the driveway we roll back to the past. 

The Depression Era migration of Americans to the Philippines and Manila to find a better life in a beautiful land that was an American Commonwealth (on its way to becoming a fully independent nation under President Quezon.) We fill in the details of history with clips of our characters describing a plantation, rich parties with MacArthur. 

Cut to quotes of Interviewed survivors of anger against MacArthur abandoning them, of MacArthur’s unpreparedness. About his promise to return. 

Brief summation of how after Pearl Harbor the Japanese also attacked Clark Air Base in the Philippines and how in three short months they would decimate the American defenses that were supposed to protect them. President Quezon and MacArthur escape with their families. Survivors describe the stunned reactions of their families, how they had to surrender and were imprisoned in various camps, the largest of which was created in the Santo Tomas University in Manilla. The film explains how they were divided up by Visas, dual citizenship, and race. Whether you were restricted and confined to your home, allowed to walk the streets, or packed off to an internment camp or prison all hinged on your precious passport. If you were a German Jewish refugee who had escaped the Holocaust, your German passport kept you out of prison, if your mother or father were Spanish Filipino, you might be allowed to stay out of the camps. But all of the allied forces were scooped up, and if your father was part of the US military, he was taken away. 

The resistance of the Filipino people to the Japanese invasion becomes the large second chapter to this story. Their resistance was unexpected by the Japanese military leaders and their determination won them their country back in the end. Memories of fathers and brothers disappearing to join the Guerillas. Women who fostered the babies of mothers carried off into Santo Tomas Internment camp. Amas (fathers) who stayed with and rescued their young American charges through the Battle of Manila. Families who spied, fed, passed supplies to prisoners and fought throughout the War are a testament to the human spirit that goes beyond the politics of War and keeps kindness, integrity and hope at the forefront of all their choices. The Alamo Scouts, Filipino Guerillas and the US military together engineered some of the most daring rescues of civilians still studied at military academies today. 

For a child this is brutal, confusing even now, causing night terrors, food disorders, mental health issues, survivors guilt; these dramatic moments run through the souls of these survivors and break our hearts. 

But childhood will find a way to emerge with a bit of joy amidst horrible circumstances. Like a yellow dandelion that has found its way up through a crack in a sidewalk in a war-torn city. Or the prison camp paper dolls the interned children played with that have survived to this day. The Japanese soldier who gives out candy because “he hopes someone will be kind to his child back in Japan”. The children who lived through this massive incarceration of civilians, and their descendants want to carry their intimate tales forward for the world to take note and know of the lasting effects of War. So, they gather at the reunions and now some of their grandchildren and great grandchildren are attending with them and helping them make the trip.

We end with Karen’s arrival at the reunion in Sacramento and her greeting of each of the survivors already interviewed. We catch up with their lives and see where they are now, and experience the bond they have with each other.

We film this reunion and combine the footage with an older reunion in Norfolk, Virginia, where our experts, James W. Zobel, and James Scott present their credentials. 

The US National Anthem and the Philippine Islands National Anthem are played. 

We end with a touching collage of the aging faces blending with their childhood faces, and we marvel at their resilience in the face of War. 

WHY IS THIS FILM IMPORTANT?

We are at a time presently where the civilian casualties of war and conflict, whether in the Middle East, Ukraine or elsewhere, are constantly in the news. Their plight brings back the stories of the civilian victims of the Philippine Islands during the absolute horrors of WWII. Beheadings, torture, starvation, neglect and separation were ever-present during the Japanese occupation of the Philippine Islands. 

Without iphone cameras and social media platforms it was even harder to keep the civilians’ agony in the public eye. Propaganda obscured the truth and the leaders at the top of these huge nations had huge self-serving goals that factor in collateral damages (civilian deaths) as a means to an end.  

ARTISTIC APPROACH

"I am amazed as I speak to survivors about the long term affects that imprisonment had on them. I look at my own mother, age 13 when she was liberated and still obsessing about food to this day. I marvel at her ability to create a life, to survive, to love, and to persevere.  

"I speak to Filipino artists in my theatre world of Los Angeles, and they know nothing of these stories. They want to know more of their ancestors’ role in winning back the Philippines from the Japanese. The essential role of the Filipino Guerillas and their espionage must be recorded and brought back to the forefront. "Filipino and Allied forces standing up against authoritarianism, uniting behind the shared ideals of democracy and freedom of choice, contributed directly to the rescue of thousands of innocent prisoners. 

"As a 'descendant' of survivors, I have intimate knowledge of the incarceration and how it has affected every part of my family tree. I am amazed at how positive my mother is about life and moving forward. I try to live up to the bar she sets every day. A life well lived is the best legacy you can leave to honor those who did not survive, were tortured, or were permanently damaged and disfigured by the war in the Pacific.

"I am fascinated by the way childhood can progress despite the able-bodied adults, hell bent on destroying everything around them. I am fascinated by hope and how it functions in these situations. Discovering the world my mother and other POWs were born into and rescued from is important to today’s young people.

"The score will be a soundscape of environmental sounds and Filipino Folk music such as the Mabuhay Singers and Sylivia La Torre with Jewish Klezmer Music and 40s MGM movie and pop themes underscoring key moments. The voice should be female and reflective, in sharp contrast to typical 1940s War movies set in the Pacific."

~ Arden Teresa Lewis, Director