SANTA
FE ART INSTITUTE presents
Cats of Mirikitani
a
documentary by Linda Hattendorf
Santa Fe Film Center at Cinemacafe, 11/06
A
couple of months after 9/11, filmmaker Linda Hattendorf came to the
SF Art Institute as an emergency relief artist. She brought with her
the early footage she had shot for this film, now a sensation at film
festivals! Every showing in New York’s Tribeca Film Festival in
May 2006 was sold out!
"Make art
not war" is Jimmy Mirikitani’s motto. This 85-year-old Japanese
American artist was born in Sacramento and raised in Hiroshima, but
by 2001 he is living on the streets of New York with the twin towers
of the World Trade Center still ominously anchoring the horizon behind
him. What begins as a simple verite portrait of one homeless man will
become a rare document of daily life in New York in the months leading
up to 9/11. How deeply these two stories will be intertwined cannot
yet be imagined. This is the story of losing "home" on many
levels.
How did Mirikitani end up on the streets? The answer is in his art.
As tourists and shoppers hurry past, he sits alone on a windy corner
in Soho drawing whimsical cats, bleak internment camps, and the angry
red flames of the atomic bomb. When a neighboring filmmaker stops to
ask about Mirikitani's art, a friendship begins that will change both
their lives. In sunshine, rain, and snow, she returns again and again
to document his drawings, trying to decipher the stories behind them.
The tales spill out in a jumble -- childhood picnics in Hiroshima, ancient
samurai ancestors, lost citizenship, Jackson Pollock, Pearl Harbor,
thousands of Americans imprisoned in WWII desert camps, a boy who loved
cats... As winter warms to spring and summer, she begins to piece together
the puzzle of Mirikitani's past. One thing is clear from his prolific
sidewalk displays: he has survived terrible traumas and is determined
to make his history visible through his art.
September 11 thrusts Mirikitani once again into a world at war and challenges
the filmmaker to move from witness to advocate. In the chaos following
the collapse of the World Trade Center, she finds herself unable to
passively photograph this elderly man coughing in the toxic smoke, and
invites him into her small apartment. In this uncharted landscape, the
two navigate the maze of social welfare, seek out family and friends,
and research Jimmy's painful past -- finding eerie parallels to events
unfolding around them in the present.
Discovering that Jimmy is related to Janice Mirikitani, Poet Laureate
of San Francisco, is the first in a series of small miracles along the
road to recovery. Jimmy's story comes full circle when he travels back
to the West Coast to reconnect with a community of former internees
at a healing pilgrimage to the site of his internment camp Tule Lake,
and to see the sister he was separated from half a century ago.
Blending beauty and humor with tragedy and loss, THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI
is an intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war and the healing
power of art. A heart-warming affirmation of humanity that will appeal
to all lovers of peace, art, and cats.
The Filmmaker: Linda Hattendorf
Producer/Director Linda Hattendorf has been working in the New York
documentary community for more than a decade. Her editing work has aired
on PBS, A&E, and The Sundance Channel as well as in theatrical venues
and many festivals. She edited 7th Street, directed by Josh Pais; Julia
Pimsleur's Brother Born Again; Nancy Recant's Jin Shin Jyutsu and Christina
Lundberg's On the Road Home: A Spiritual Journey Guided by Remarkable
Women. She was Associate Editor on Barbara Kopple's Bearing Witness
and Helen Whitney's The Choice '96, Contributing Editor on Lisette Flanary's
American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawaii which aired on POV, a cameraperson
for William Greaves' Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2 1/2, and a researcher
for the Ken Burns series The West. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio
and holds degrees in Literature, Art History, and Media Studies. This
is her directorial debut.
Linda Hattendorf edited Cats of Mirikitani while living at SFAI as a
NY Emergency artist in residence after 9/11/01.
