A movie about what could happen if Trump’s Muslim registry proposal actually comes to fruition is being produced by an independent film company.
Little Nalu Pictures — a Los Angeles-based group headed by Koji Sakai, a descendant of Japanese Americans interned during World War II and a former executive of the Japanese American National Museum — is using the crowd funder Indiegogo to finance its feature film “Executive Order 13800,” loosely named after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order to round up Japanese Americans as a response to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
“Singling out minority groups and saying they are all bad is the biggest issue,” Sakai said. “They’re being punished for their religion and that’s against our values and the Constitution. Japanese Americans were incarcerated for looking like the enemy, and we need to make sure it doesn’t ever happen to anyone else.”
The film will follow a Muslim American family after 9/11-like attacks where President Trump orders them — and all other Muslims and Arabs — to pack their things and report to a government office, stripping them of their civil rights.
“This is a cautionary tale,” Sakai added. “It could happen if we’re not careful, it’s disturbing to me that may not have learned our lesson. We don’t want history to repeat itself.”
Phinny Kiyomura, the film’s producer and also a descendant of those incarcerated under Roosevelt’s Executive Order, agreed with Sakai. “The rhetoric is toxic and it would be a tragedy if America took the wrong path once again,” Kiyomura said. “We believe this is an opportunity to remind the rest of the country of mistakes we as a country should not make under any administration.”
Support the film at the Indiegogo page here: https://igg.me/at/EO13800
