The Tri-Co Asian American Studies Program and the Swarthmore College Department of Music present a screening of Omoiyari: A Song Film, followed by a Q&A and live performance by musician and filmmaker Kishi Bashi. The screening in performance will take place at the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema on Swarthmore College Campus.
Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kaoru Ishibashi. Born in Seattle, Washington, Ishibashi grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where both of his parents were professors at Old Dominion University. As a 1994 graduate of Matthew Fontaine Maury High School, he went on to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music before becoming a renowned violinist. Ishibashi has recorded and toured internationally as a violinist with diverse artists such as Regina Spektor, Sondre Lerche, and most recently, the Athens, Georgia-based indie rock band, of Montreal. He remains based in Athens.
A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: “Omoiyari,” the feature-length motion picture co-directed by Ishibashi and Justin Taylor Smith was released via MTV Documentary Films in theaters on October 6th. Focusing on Ishibashi’s own six-year journey of discovery surrounding his research of the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the film is part social justice documentary and part song-film experiment. Featuring Kishi Bashi live performances and improvisations on location, score, underscore, and recorded songs—all written during and about the artist’s transformational dive into his personal minority identity and serving as a broad survey of the Japanese American experience as well as the incarceration—Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari serves as an evocative musical accompaniment to the lessons of empathy and compassion portrayed in the film and highlights the process and power of one of modern music’s most talented musicians.
This event is free and open to the public, no reservation is required.
Swarthmore College encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact Susan Smythe, ADA Program Manager at 610-690-2063 in advance of your participation or visit.