Set in 1971, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, STRAWBERRY FIELDS tackles the minefield between cultural history and personal memory. After a visitation from the ghost of her sister, a rebellious 16-year-old Japanese-American girl hits the road with her boyfriend in search of a better life. Joining forces with activist friends along the way, Irene comes to an important realization about her past; her parents were incarcerated in an internment camp during WWII. Detouring the road trip, she ditches her boyfriend and drives off into the Arizona desert determined to find the truth that will set her free.
Rea Tajiri is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist who received her BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Post-Studio Art. Her films explore the psycho-spiritual dimensions of family, time, place and history. Rea's films have screened in international venues such as the Fukuoka International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto Reel Asian, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Punta de Vista, Videotage, and the Yamagata Documentary Festival. Her work has also been included in several Whitney Biennials. Rea's essay documentary short History and Memory is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and won an International Documentary Association's Distinguished Achievement Award. Her debut feature film Strawberry Fields won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Asian International Film Festival. Rea's current film Wisdom Gone Wild was awarded funding through CAAM, Independence Media Fund Philadelphia and ITVS. In 2015, Rea received a Pew Foundation Artist Fellowship and in 2021, she received the Leeway Transformation Award. Previously, she was awarded fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Rea teaches documentary filmmaking and is an Associate Professor in the Film Media Arts Department at Temple University.
