Alumnus pays homage to family in short film “Nisei”

By Bryanna Bartlett

From a young age, Darren Haruo Rae knew he wanted to tell his grandfather’s story one day.

He grew up hearing tales from his grandfather, Minoru Miyasaki, a second-generation Japanese American who volunteered from an internment camp to join the U.S. army and serve in World War II.

Between 1942-45, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in internment camps across the U.S. under Executive Order 9066, according to the National Archives.

Darren Haruo Rae’s grandfather and great uncle, along with several other Japanese Americans, voluntarily joined the 442nd Regimental Combat

Team while their families remained interned.

The 442nd, which was nicknamed as the Purple Heart Battalion, is recognized as the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the U.S. military’s history, according to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

It was also mainly composed of second-generation, or “Nisei,” Japanese Americans.

“I had this idea in my head for years, even back when I was in college 10 years ago,” Darren Haruo Rae said.

After graduating from San José State in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Radio, TV and Film, it wasn’t until the coronavirus pandemic that he started screenwriting Minoru Miyasaki’s story.

“Everyone kind of stopped working and you’re just at home by yourself and it kind of made me reorient myself and think ‘Why did I get in this business? And what do I really want to do with it?’ ” he said. “It went back to the story.”

After a year of writing, a year of co-producing and a summer of filming in SJSU’s theater and in Petaluma, the 20-minute film was released in February. The film was co-produced by Roann Films, a company founded by Darren Haruo Rae and fellow SJSU alumni Nick Martinez and Jessica Olthof.

Olthof said the three have known each other for over a decade and they decided to shoot the film at SJSU in partnership with Spartan Film Studios – the program that brought them together.

Spartan Film Studios is a summer course composed of students, alumni and faculty who turn the University Theatre into a full-on production set.

“Having filmed it with (SJSU) students, it actually allowed us to kind of slow down,” Olthof said. “It gave us the whole summer to really prep this project instead of sort of rushing everything at the last minute, which is how a lot of low-budget film shoots go.”

Martinez expressed the same sentiment.

“When you’re producing, the main thing is always going to be, ‘Is it going to get done? Are you going to be on time? Are you going to be on a budget? Are you meeting the director’s vision?’ ” Martinez said. “So when you have students that do that, it’s nice, because you get to see the wonder in their eyes, and then they go, ‘Oh, wait, I really gotta get to work now.’ ”

Darren Haruo Rae said he was happy to bring his project to the Spartan Film Studios and collaborate with students, especially as the pandemic during 2020 and 2021 made the summer program impossible.

“So much of the teaching became (remote) that you had juniors and seniors, but they didn’t have the hands-on experience like they normally would from years before and so there was this gap in terms of like, passing knowledge down,” he said.

Darren Haruo Rae said the first thing he told the students was that he’d be forever grateful for their time and efforts and he’d make it as valuable as he could – that included bringing on film professionals.

Those professionals included field experts in special effects, sound designing, key grip and lighting and photographers who gave lectures and hands-on training.

Apart from illuminating his grandfather’s and great uncle’s stories, Darren Haruo Rae said he hopes the film provides a window to a time period about which many young adults don’t know.

“My generation is the last generation that has a direct connection to (WWII),” he said.

Katie Sumiye Rae, Darren Haruo Rae’s sister who worked as an armorer on the set, said she hopes their grandfather’s story resonates with viewers.

“When I was in school, this was maybe a paragraph in our history books and so as more people become aware of it, I hope more people become interested and realize what has happened in our history,” Katie Sumiye Rae said.

“Something we don’t want to repeat again.”

Darren Haruo Rae said he believes it’s important to educate people in a way that isn’t talking down to them.

He said while the film is a narrative piece that sheds light on a tough subject, it’s less about the evil of the world and more about the triumph of good people.

“The point of this film is not necessarily ‘Government bad’ or ‘The white man’s bad for doing this.’ It’s about how awesome my grandfather was, look how awesome this community was,” Darren Haruo Rae said. “What they went through was one of the worst times in modern day history, but I think spreading it as guilt is the wrong message here. Instead, look at these heroes.”

Karen Miyasaki-Rae, Darren Haruo Rae’s mother and daughter of Minoru Miyasaki, said she’s so proud of the film and she imagines her father, who died from cancer in 2011, would have been too.

“[My father] would just have been thrilled,” Miyasaki-Rae said. “He would just be grinning from ear to ear.”

Nisei premiered in the Cinejoy Virtual Film Festival from March 1-12, at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival in Hollister on April 12 and at the Beverly Hills Film Festival between April 19-23.

The short film won “Best Drama” and “Best Narrative Short” at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and is expected to be shown next at the in-person Cinequest Film Festival in August.