The Freedom Film Series Presents American Pastime May 4
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jamie Glavic
(513) 333-7511
(513) 802-7355
jglavic@nurfc.org
Assia Johnson
(513) 333-7555
(513) 787-2110
asjohnson@nurfc.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CINCINNATI, OH (April 12, 2016) — The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, in partnership with the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Film Commission, announced the fourth film in the Freedom Film Series today, American Pastime. This compelling drama, directed Desmond Nakano, is set in the Topaz War Relocation Center—a Utah Prison Camp that interned thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII. American Pastime will screen Wednesday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the Harriet Tubman Theater and is free and open to the public. A welcome reception will be held in the Grand Hall at 5:30 p.m. with the film screening promptly at 6:30 p.m. The Freedom Film Series is sponsored by Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.
American Pastime, produced by Emmy award-winning producer Barry Rosenbush, tells a poignant story of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II—through the lens of America’s great pastime, baseball. The film follows the story of the Nomura family, beginning from their internment in the Topaz War Relocation Center in 1941, and their struggle to remain hopeful through America’s bleak and heightened sense of paranoia, prejudice and discrimination towards Japanese Americans. For these relocated and displaced families, baseball becomes a valuable means in which they cope with the unmanageable.
“American Pastime is powerful film that explores another struggle in our recent history,” says Dr. Michael Battle, executive vice president and provost of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. “Collectively we can learn from other struggles for freedom—a belief that is the very foundation of our mission—calling out and standing up against injustices around the world and at home.”
A discussion and Q&A with the producer of the film Barry Rosenbush and author, filmmaker, producer and historian, Kerry Yo Nakagawa will conclude the program.
American Pastime screens Wednesday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the Harriet Tubman Theater and is free and open to the public. A welcome reception will be held in the Grand Hall at 5:30 p.m. with the film screening promptly at 6:30 p.m. For more information and to RSVP, visit freedomcenter.org.
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in August 2004 on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Since then, more than 1.3 million people have visited its permanent and changing exhibits and public programs, inspiring everyone to take courageous steps for freedom. Two million people have utilized educational resources online at freedomcenter.org, working to connect the lessons of the Underground Railroad to inform and inspire today’s global and local fight for freedom. Partnerships include Historians Against Slavery, Polaris Project, Free the Slaves, US Department of State and International Justice Mission. In 2014, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center launched a new online resource in the fight against modern slavery, endslaverynow.org.
