Reel Asian co-sponsors KANO film screening and panel on Wednesday February 4, 2015.
Presented by InDepth Conference and the Dr. David Chu Program in Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto. Come out to see the film screening of KANO followed by an academic panel led by Dr. Takashi Fujitani and Dr. Andrew Morris. Directed by Taiwanese actor/director Umin Boya, this Reel Asian festival favourite is an underdog story about a Taiwanese baseball team who made it to the finals of the 1931 Koshien, Japan’s national high school baseball championship.
Find out more information below.
KANO
Dir. Umin Boya
Wednesday February 4, 2015 @ 4:00PM – 9:00PM
Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Ave)
Admission: Online registration
SYNOPSIS: “What does race have to do with baseball?” Based on a true story, KANO depicts a multiethnic squad of rural Taiwan-based highschoolers who made it to the national championships in Japan in 1931. KANO is the directorial debut for Boya, most well-known for his leading role in Seediq Bale (Warriors of the Rainbow 2011). VIEW TRAILER
An academic panel composed of Dr. Takashi Fujitani (University of Toronto) and Dr. Andrew Morris (California Polytechnic State University) will help us unravel the history behind the film.
Dr. Takashi Fujitani is the Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia Pacific Studies. His research focuses especially on modern and contemporary Japanese history, East Asian history, Asian American history, and transnational history (primarily U.S./Japan and Asia Pacific). He is the author of Splendid Monarchy (UC Press, 1996) and Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Koreans in WWII (UC Press, 2011); co-editor of Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (Duke U. Press, 2001); and editor of the series Asia Pacific Modern (UC Press).
Dr. Andrew Morris is Professor of Modern Chinese and Taiwanese history at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is author of ‘Colonial Project, National Game: A History of Baseball in Taiwan’ (University of California Press, 2010) and Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China (University of California Press, 2004; and editor of ‘Japanese Taiwan: Colonial Rule and Its Contested Legacy’ (Bloomsbury Publishing, forthcoming).