Children of Internment » KristinaWagner

PBS OETA – Oklahoma To Air Children of Internment

KristinaWagner — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 17:25:28 +0000

On Veteran's Day, November 11, at 10:00PM (local time) "Children Of Internment" will air statewide in Oklahoma on public television.

We are especially charged to be a part of PBS OETA. This version of the film runs for 57 minutes. It's shortened for the PBS time slot.

If you are in Oklahoma, tune in and see the television version of COI.

Since OETA is a sort of clearing house for other PBS affiliates around the country, we are hoping to get picked up by other stations around the country.

We’re Marching to Zion—-(okay kinda hokey)

KristinaWagner — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 19:37:35 +0000

The 8th Annual Red Rock Film Festival has just made ‘Children Of Internment’ a part of their official selection.

We screen Friday, 11/14 @ 4:30PM and we have a second screening at the festival on 11/15 @ 6:45PM.

We are excited to have 2 screenings at Red Rock in, may be, one of the most beautiful locations in the world, Zion Canyon of South Utah. I won’t miss my hike the day before the screening!

You can buy your tickets at the Heritage Center Theater, 105 N. 100 E., Cedar City, UT or online at: www.rrff.eventbrite.com or call 435-705-5555. You can also buy tickets at the door.

Tweet us at: @internmentdoc and @RedRockFilmFestival and let us know you will be there.

We enjoy meeting the folks who show up to see us.

Looking forward to this screening,
Kristina and Joe

Our CSUN – screening

KristinaWagner — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 19:31:23 +0000

Detained In America: The Selective Relocation of German-Americans and German Aliens During WWII, was the original title of my final paper in 2011 at California State University Northridge. Last week, October 9, 2014 we screened, 'Children Of Internment', the film version of this paper I wrote for CSUN.

I originally wrote about this topic because I felt that, like the Japanese-Americans of WWII, many German-Americans were not given the protection that is granted to Americans under the Constitution. I think it is important to acknowledge German alien internment because the Alien Enemy Control Program (AECP) which began in 1936, was the precursor to what happened to Japanese-American citizens.

Last week our panelists at the film screening included John Christgau, Sigrid B. Toye, Charles McCollister, Joe and myself.

It came as no surprise that the CSUN students were engaged and asked us good questions about America's internment program of WWII and it's relevance today.

Thanks CSUN for the opportunity for me to share this extended story of internment with your community.

TIX Are Now On Sale For Newport Beach Film Festival

KristinaWagner — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 00:03:32 +0000

We are honored to be a part of the official selection of the Newport Beach Film Festival! Children Of Internment will screen at the Triangle Theater in Costa Mesa on May 29th at 5:30PM.

Get your tickets online at NewportBeachFilmFestival.com

While you are there, give our movie a boost by clicking the 5 star rating and writing a friendly comment or review.

Media in the United States played a major role in shaping public opinion regarding the German American community during the mid to late 30's and through the 1940's. Propaganda took us into WWII, and propaganda continued to be a driving force for government political power over public opinion. By 1941 the average weekly attendance at motion theaters in the United States was estimated to be 85 million. According to a business survey of the Department of Commerce, the film theater box office amounted to 80 to 85 percent of the amount Americans spent for spectator amusement. Acknowledging the impact of film on the American people, the government called upon the California motion picture industry to aid the war effort. The film industry provided propaganda films. The U.S. was represented as a democracy at work, a nation of people united behind the war effort no matter what gender, economic strata, or racial and ethnic background. All were called upon to perform needed work and all were capable of doing so.*

Children Of Internment is an expose of the treatment of American citizens and non-citizens during wartime. We like to think that we gave many perspectives of the internment program.

*Roger W. Lotchin, The Way We Really Were(Urbana and Chicago:University of Illinois Press, 2000), 31.

Our Travels While Making The Film

KristinaWagner — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 23:02:42 +0000

Kristina and Joe in the Big Chair at Mader's – Milwaukee, WI –

Our first interview was in May 2012. I flew out to Indiana and we drove up to Chicago to meet Eberhard at the Ellis House. This was the house he was detained in 1943 with his brother, Julius, after they were arrested for "suspicion" in Cincinnati.

The house is currently privately owned. We were lucky the homeowner was so gracious and interested in this story. After the interview we drove through Chicago, down Lakeshore Drive and filmed B-roll. Joe had the camera and was hanging out the sunroof and I was driving the Hummer! We were zooming along under the L-train tracks and we were both laughing out loud.

-Back to Indiana to fly home to Los Angeles.

-The last weekend in June, Joe flew to Los Angeles to join me. We had four interviews that weekend. We traveled around Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. As an interviewer I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot. And always you get plenty of B-roll!

-Later in September, Joe flew back to Los Angeles and we went, together, up to San Francisco and the surrounding areas. That was an especially fun trip. We were getting used to the interview process and San Fran is so beautiful. There was so much to shoot. We wrapped up our days, there, at the Fisherman's Wharf. Great restaurants were everywhere.

-Finally in November was the Annual Spinach Festival in Crystal City, TX. We both flew in to San Antonio. We had two interviews there. We took a quick walk over to the Alamo and ate Mexican food along the riverwalk in San Antonio with Eric Gehrman and his wife. We are both just tourists at heart. The only other time I had been to San Antonio was in 1984 during my first month on General Hospital. I was an Aztec Princess then. lol

We drove down to Crystal City to the internment camp there. It's an agricultural area. There were not many ruins of the camp left. There really wasn't anything left standing.

The interview with Richard Santos made it definitely worth the trip. He took us over to a cemetery where some of the internees from the camp had been buried. The graves were unmarked except for two. We also saw a dump site where the government had left some of the old offices of the camp. We attended the Spinach Festival Parade.

Joe got a little camera happy. When I saw him running with his camera between the lines of tubas and trombones in the marching band I thought I was going to loose him! The next day we were off to another part of Texas for our last interview in the state.

-Smash cut…The end of November, I flew in to Indianapolis. We were headed to Chicago again and Wisconsin. First stop, Milwaukee. I mention Milwaukee specifically because we ate at the greatest German restaurant ever, Mader's. After three more interviews in Wisconsin, we were done. 2013 was a year of flying back and forth to Indiana to edit with Joe.

-Our first screening was in Los Angeles, at the Chinese Theaters on January 27, 2014.

Now it's time for our first Film Festival. Hooray!

Children Of Internment Has Been Accepted Into Two Film Festivals

KristinaWagner — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 02:29:00 +0000

The Santa Fe Film Festival has made our film one of their official selection for this year. We couldn't be more proud. We hope you'll join us May 4th at 10:45AM at the Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501.

The second festival will be announced in April. This is our first film festival experience.

We hope to meet you in Santa Fe, New Mexico!

Here is the festival site: http://santafefilmfestival.com

Thank You To My General Hospital Friends

KristinaWagner — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 11:29:07 +0000

I wanted to thank my friends from General Hospital for showing up at my screening and supporting our film. We've known each other for so many years and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your love and support.

Enjoy the pictures!

Love Kristina

For more General Hospital cast connections visit my Twitter page @1KristinaWagner

A big thank you for the photos to Jim Warren!

A Disregard of Personal Rights

KristinaWagner — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 21:50:58 +0000

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the FBI by the Attorney General, Harlan F. Stone.

By 1936 the FBI and U.S. Justice Department had secretly collected a list of names of people across the country who might be “dangerous and disloyal.” This program was created during peacetime and gave those so labeled no right to confront their accusers. Acquiring thousands of names was the personal passion of Hoover. He believe he had a mandate to intrude into peoples’ lives. He understood better than anyone else in this century that information was power.

In January 1934, a New York Congressman, Sam Dickstein, created a special committee to investigate Nazi propaganda activities in the United States. The American public grew increasingly anxious about the presence of a possible internal Fifth Column of enemies. As Americans read about Hitler’s successes in the daily news, their eyes began to turn toward the Germans and German-Americans living in their midst.

German-Americans were thought to be putting ground glass in America’s sausage, poisoning community water supplies and spreading defeatist or pacifist thoughts. Rumor had it that Kaiser’s agents were disguised as Bible salesmen. The imagination of the public had run amok. ‘The Day Book’, a monthly publication in Chicago, ran stories that they claimed did not pan out. There was a seizure of the German ships interned in American harbors. This story was followed up by another story of the official denial by the president of its truth.

The published article reluctantly said that “fact reporting is a long ways from being an exact science in the United States.”

It goes on, “There is too much peddling of rumor and opinion – too much public sentiment founded on false information.”

Arnold Krammer, Undue Process (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997), 1,3.

Screening At The Chinese Theater

KristinaWagner — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 21:46:10 +0000

We did it.

We had our first private screening of Children Of Internment at the Chinese Theater.

It was an honor to host the evening for the cast and internees that gave us incredible interviews for the project.

A very special thank you to all of them. I would also like to thank the family and friends who also joined us in a full auditorium.

After the final credits we had a sip of peppermint schnapps and then went to the Wirtshaus restaurant on La Brea Ave. in Hollywood for some schnitzel.

Public Screening For Children Of Internment

KristinaWagner — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 18:43:59 +0000

A lot of folks have been asking us about public screenings of the film. While the film is being submitted to film festivals this year we are not allowed to have any public screenings – only private ones. We want more »Read Complete post.