Directed by Sheldon Wong Shwartz, The Bridge is a captivating short film about the race and an ideal, about loyalty and a cause. The story takes us to 1945 Italy where deep inside the enemy territory, the Japanese-American soldier disconnected from his regiment regroups with an Allied American squad. As he joins the unit, however, not everyone is as welcoming given the tensions between Japan and US that followed the attack on Pear Harbor just few years earlier. Yet despite the differences the film sets on a mission to remind all of us that we are all one, we are all the same. In the words of Ronald Regan: the “blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all one color”.
Written by Keith Kuramoto, the film begins with the look on the inside of one of the “War Relocation Camps” in California, where we see the young volunteer soldier, one of the main characters of the story, and his beautiful woman during, what seems to be, their last moments together.
In 1942 nearly 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific Coast were relocated to mentioned above camps, with many more in other parts of the country – an internment authorized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Executive Order 9066. Yet despite being deprived of many rights as American citizens, over 20,000 Japanese Americans volunteered to serve during WWII.
And it is here that we get back to the story as the 442nd. a regiment of Japanese-American soldiers is assigned to fight in Italy. They fight while their families remain in internment camps. They fight more than a war; they fight the past and the prejudice of the fellow U.S. soldiers.
The Bridge, shot in 2008 on the HVX200 with the Letus 35, is Sheldon’s first journey into the war genre, but certainly not the first journey into the world of directing – a passion that started all the way back at the age of 10. This passion soon led him to direct many short films while attending California State University, and graduating from the prestigious graduate film program at the Art Center College of Design.
Sheldon is currently employed by the agency directing spots for many of the top technology companies, but taking aside his day job lets hope there is another great short already on its way.
Related Links:
Sheldon Schwartz Official Website
The Bridge on Myspace