Enemy Alien Treatment

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Konrad Aderer

Enemy Alien

PROJECT DESCRIPTION INTRODUCTION Three years ago I set out to document the lives of Muslim families torn apart by post-9/11 policies. But after interviewing Palestinian-born detainee Farouk Abdel-Muhti and confronting my own family’s WWII internment, my role as observer came to an end, and I joined the fight for his release. Knowing Farouk changed my life and my connection to my family history. He was not only, like my mother and grandparents, an innocent person unjustly targeted as an enemy alien, but a fearless human rights defender who stood for all detainees. Enemy Alien breaks vital new ground in the public discourse on the targeting of Muslims post9/11. With the dramatic two-year struggle of Farouk, his community and the filmmaker himself at its heart, this film moves beyond the affecting but static portraits imparted by previous documentaries covering this territory. Intertwined with the unfolding story is the personal journey of a Japanese American uncovering increasingly disturbing echoes of what he’s witnessing and experiencing in the lesser-known events of the internment. Yet this film ultimately uplifts us, through the journeys of characters who are not merely victims but evolving, active forces for change. TREATMENT The billowing smoke of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, news clips showing how the two events were linked in the public mind, and my mother’s birth inside a relocation camp introduce the antithesis of my theme – if 9/11 was another Pearl Harbor, then the targeting of Muslims takes on an ominous inevitability. But from this point, in a dramatic three-act structure, the characters overcome this oppressive sense of history repeating itself. Through intertwined storylines Farouk and I each live out the theme of the documentary – that the tragic cycle of targeting “enemy alien” populations can only be broken by resistance, inspired by solidarity between communities. Act One Through still pictures, broadcasts on WBAI, and most vividly through the recollections of his wide-ranging friends, Farouk emerges as a tireless, mercurial activist who bridged communities. His arrest by federal agents in April 2003 sends a shock through progressives across the world. In that period some 8,000 immigrant Muslim “absconders” with outstanding deportation orders, like Farouk, are targeted for arrest and interrogation. Farouk’s supporters see a political agenda in the timing of his arrest, weeks after he began arranging live broadcasts of Palestinians under siege. Farouk’s detention on the pretext of deporting him amounts to an indefinite prison sentence as well as a cruel joke, since as a stateless Palestinian he is undeportable. Though no Japanese Americans were convicted of plotting against the United States, first- and second-generation Japanese were targeted for detention in ways very similar to what is happening in the present era. The moment the U.S. declared war on Japan, non-citizens from Japan legally became “enemy aliens,” who were detained by the thousands in Department of Justice roundups. Subjects from this era will include Grace Shimizu, Satsuki Ina, Kinya Noguchi, and Marion Kanemoto, who will share their experiences of FBI targeting. I will also

Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

interview Ayleen Ito Lee, daughter of Kenji Ito, a Nisei lawyer who was arrested the day after Pearl Harbor and prosecuted as a pro-Japan sympathizer. Days after I interview Farouk in Passaic County Jail, he organizes a hunger strike with five other detainees. The INS transfers him to solitary confinement in York County Jail, Pennsylvania. Struck by a feeling of hopelessness about Farouk’s situation, I drive to Ohio to visit my grandmother, who tells me about her internment for the first time. Archival footage of the gathering of Japanese Americans into the pre-camp “assembly centers” and my narration will explore their acquiescence. What would I have done if I’d lived in that time? Act Two I join the struggle for Farouk’s release, covering Farouk’s son, friends and lawyers as they fight to get Farouk out of solitary. My emotional involvement escalates as I find myself facing obstacles and consequences. The warden of York County Jail refuses to allow me to interview Farouk. FBI agents stop me from videotaping a demonstration of Farouk’s son and supporters in front of 26 Federal Plaza, where Farouk and thousands of other Muslim immigrants have been interrogated and abused. We see my feet surrounded by those of the FBI agents as they tell me the building is a terrorist target, and footage could be used for an attack. Asian American Studies Professor Ling-Chi Wang and historian Greg Robinson recount the lesser-known history of Japanese immigrants whose political views and cultural ties were construed as loyalty to Japan. The War Relocation Authority recruited informants among the internees to report on anti-government agitation, and “troublemakers” were summarily confined to stockades. The Department of Homeland Security’s actions and legal briefs on Farouk show striking parallels. Though no terrorism-related or criminal charges are ever filed against Farouk, the Department of Homeland Security cites Farouk’s “anti-American rhetoric” and an unidentified informer’s claim that he is involved in “Al Qaeda recruitment” to justify his solitary confinement, as months pass into years. Farouk’s 26-year-old son Tariq and I become friends through this campaign, and we’re bonded still further by a development I never would have imagined. When I try to videotape Tariq outside the jail where his father is being held, prison police stop and search us, confiscating my tapes. They are turned over to the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, and an FBI agent questions me about whether Tariq is a potential terrorist. I then arrive at a meeting of Farouk’s supporters to learn Tariq has been arrested. My shock and disorientation is quite clear as I hand my camera over and they interview me about the incident. Act Three Released from detention, a vigorous Farouk becomes the most outspoken former Homeland Security detainee. We find him giving a speech in the Capitol building in Washington D.C. and back at WBAI speaking against human rights abuses in Palestine and Abu Ghraib. But three months later in Philadelphia, at the end of an impassioned speech calling for solidarity between communities, Farouk dies suddenly from a heart attack. The mourning period of his son and vast community is shown in his burial and memorial, and coverage in the progressive media.

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Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

In the final chapter of my storyline I will come face-to-face with the government figures who can authoritatively address the major questions raised by Farouk’s case and post-9/11 policies. I will interview Sidney J. Caspersen, Director of The New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, and the ICE spokespersons in New Jersey and Washington, D.C., who will give their views on Farouk’s case and the larger context of post-9/11 policies. We will shoot my phone conversations and verite lead-in to these interviews, which will be shot with two cameras. Michael Wildes, a former Federal Prosecutor and immigration lawyer who has worked with the government on major terrorism cases, appears in interviews spanning three years and characterestablishing coverage. Though he strongly supports the use of national security profiling, his views become more nuanced over time. Shane Kadidal, the Center for Constitutional Rights attorney who won Farouk’s habeas petition, is now pursuing the return of my confiscated videotapes from the Department of Homeland Security – the outcome of this case will also be part of the story. Farouk was charismatic, even prophet-like, consumed literally to his dying breath by his commitment to human rights. The resolution of documentary will show how Tariq is following in his father’s footsteps as an activist, speaking on WBAI. My meeting with Ms. Kochiyama, whom Farouk visited after his release, will be a passing of the torch of resistance, as she recounts her own journey from internee to activist and reflects on Farouk’s life and passing. Factual background This documentary focuses on policies of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice which have targeted immigrants based on their nationality, and seeks to help clear up the common confusion between these detainees and other classes of detainees and suspects, such as those who have been captured overseas. The 2003 Inspector General report on the first group of “9/11 Detainees” established that none of them was connected with terrorism. One Moroccan immigrant detained shortly after 9/11, Karim Koubriti, was convicted of terrorism charges but was later acquitted. The “Absconder Apprehension Initiative” that included Farouk’s arrest has not been reported to have yielded a terrorism suspect, but this documentary will seek a conclusive answer on that subject. In 2002-2003, 80,000 immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries were required to report for Special Registration, and 13,000 of them were put in deportation proceedings. The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that none of these immigrants was ever linked to terrorism. Nonetheless, this documentary does not seek to prove that it is impossible to catch a terrorist with these policies, but to convey their human impact and a give a rational, informed basis for judging their effectiveness. STYLE AND FORMAT Enemy Alien will use a multi-layered visual style incorporating distinct elements – two prison interviews with Farouk and footage of him from his release to his final speech, as well as video footage and audio recordings of many of the most dramatic developments in the subjects’ lives. Immediate and spontaneous coverage I shot myself with Tariq will provide intimate highlights to the storylines. The Farouk storyline footage will serve as the spine of a personal/historical narrative fleshed out with images, archival footage, and interviews. Historical interstitials from the World War II internment will develop themes from the dramatic high points of Farouk’s story. 3

Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

Further production will include interviews with friends of Farouk, who will yield their reflections on his life and insights into their experience of the story. These will be shot and lit for intimacy, on a designed set – the backdrop, a montage of images and words relating to Farouk, and a table of objects – such as Farouk’s letters and other effects from prison, and the signs, flyers and bullhorn used in two years of “Free Farouk” demonstrations. These objects will be incorporated as visuals and referred to by the characters. Some of Tariq’s interviews will be shot as encounters between Tariq and myself on that set. The historical and recent archival footage will be used not only factually but expressionistically, developing thematic ideas on how resistance itself conflicts with national security restrictions on videotaping subways and prisons, and how they relate to the fear of Japanese American espionage and sabotage. Voiceover will be employed to personify government documents justifying the internment. Enemy Alien will be produced in the one-hour format (56:40). PUBLIC TELEVISION AND TARGET AUDIENCE
The problem is that we learn in hindsight that the laws went too far…and then there’s a period of atonement, there’s a period of apologizing to the immigrants who were affected many years ago…But I don’t understand why we cannot have this insight right now. – Cyrus Mehta, immigration law expert

Public Television has long served as the true home of documentaries on the Japanese American internment. However, these documentaries emerged decades after the camps were closed. Most Americans are not aware that thousands of Arab and South Asian immigrants have been detained in the U.S. since 9/11, with none convicted of planning a terrorist attack. My two years working with the activist community on this issue as a media artist/activist has shown me there is an urgent need for an incisive feature work on this topic. My short videos have been frequently requested and used to organize events, inspiring wider participation in the important work of helping detainees and their families with their legal and human needs. I have built close relationships with the organizations most directly involved in immigrants’ rights, including the South Asian community organization Desis Rising Up and Moving, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, affording valuable opportunities for outreach, which will be carried out with the help of an Outreach Coordinator and utilizing a dedicated funding stream. Public Television can play a vital role in advancing the public awareness of the human rights of immigrants by broadcasting Enemy Alien to a national audience. More importantly, the extensive PBS network can reach the homes of families affected by the crisis and help encourage them to seek support. While I am interested in attracting a large general audience for the broadcast, the South Asian and Arab communities are the target audience for whom these are life or death issues. The large Asian American audience of Public Television will also find that this project enriches the exploration of their history. PRODUCTION PERSONNEL

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Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

Konrad Aderer (Director/Producer) first studied filmmaking with Roddy Bogawa (Some Divine Wind). Prior to becoming a filmmaker, he worked as a professional stage and film actor and spent two years researching and writing for WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. Having served in technical positions in several independent features and shorts, he made his directorial debut with the digital video short Harlem Fight Song, which won a Cinevue Jury Award. He served as president of the WorkSHOP (Asian American Filmmakers Collaborative, a project of Asian Cinevision) from 2002 through 2003. Konrad has worked with Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Desis Rising Up and Moving (D.R.U.M.), and other community organizations on Life or Liberty (lifeorliberty.org), a grassroots media initiative he initiated and developed under the fiscal sponsorship of Third World Newsreel, which produces short videos for organizing on behalf of immigrants facing detention and deportation. Konrad Aderer’s short documentaries under this project include Life or Liberty, Farouk Abdel-Muhti: Political Prisoner, and Rising Up: The Alams. These works have screened at festivals and venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Museum of Modern Art's Documentary Fortnight. Konrad also works as a videographer and field producer of PSAs, most recently for USAID in Ghana. Through a twist of fate this August, Konrad found himself in Bay St. Louis, MS with his brothers facing hurricane Katrina. He is currently finishing a documentary using footage of the experience, called A Corner of Her Eye. Sam Pollard (Executive Producer) is a documentary producer/director and a feature film editor who teaches film studies at New York University. His feature film and documentary accomplishments span thirty years. He has been awarded several Emmys, a George Peabody Award and been nominated for an Academy Award. Sam Pollard co-produced Terror and Triumph from the Emmy-nominated PBS series The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, which spans African-American history from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. His producing credits include Spike Lee's ACADEMY and Emmy Award-nominated Four Little Girls, which documents the infamous 1964 Alabama black church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four young girls. Mr. Pollard's other credits include Blackside, Inc.'s Eyes On The Prize II: America At The Racial Crossroads, for which he won an Emmy Award for writing. Pollard, with Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer, was honored with the Pare Lorentz Award for Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, a documentary about the visionary pioneer, crusader and advocate of nonviolence in the struggle for racial justice in the 1940s. Mr. Pollard has been editor of several feature films, including Clockers, Iron Mike, Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, and Girl 6. He also co-produced Spike Lee’s Jim Brown All-American. Mridu Chandra (Consulting Producer) most recently co-produced Let the Church Say Amen, an ITVS documentary shown at Sundance 2004. She also produced the ITVS project American Socrates: The Life of Bayard Rustin and served as an associate producer, researcher and assistant editor on a variety of WNET/PBS productions in New York, including “American Masters,” “Innovation,” and “MetroArts,” a program on arts and culture in the tri-state area. She has a Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago, where she studied the intersection of sexuality and politics in South Asia. From 1992-1994, she produced and hosted a weekly radio program in Montreal on race and gender in politics and the arts. She is a member of the CPB/WGBH Producers Academy, and her writing appears in the Brooklyn Rail.

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Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

Joyce Greene and Loch Phillipps (Line Producers), partners in Off Ramp Films, have worked together for almost a decade, producing over fifty documentaries for UNICEF set in numerous places around the world. Their work has focused specifically on Muslim communities in Bangladesh and Albania, and has also taken them to China, Madagascar, Latin America, and South Africa. Their films have aired on broadcast stations such as CNN International and Star Television, which cover much of Asia, as well as local and regional African stations. Jacob Akira Okada (Cinematographer) is an editor and cinematographer based in New York City who recently earned a B.F.A. in Film and Television Production from NYU. He was the assistant director on the 2003 Sundance short film, The Cutman. He worked as an assistant editor to Jean Tsien on the Matters of Race series, scheduled for broadcast on public television this fall. His 35-minute DV documentary Curtis, on the last days of an African American artist with AIDS, won Honorable Mention at Sundance 2004. Members of Jacob’s family were also interned in WWII. Dena Mermelstein (Editor) has been working in the documentary film industry for 15 years. Recent editing credits include: Cine Golden Eagle winner, American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawaii, which aired on POV in 2003 and 2004 and was partially funded by ITVS; Chiefs, best documentary winner at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival and also funded by ITVS; and Third World Newsreel’s North Korea: Beyond the DMZ, which had its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art and screened at the 2003 Margaret Mead Film Festival. Other editing credits include Gabriel Film’s 900 Women, which premiered at the 2000 Margaret Mead Film Festival; and A Woman’s Place, which aired nationally on PBS in 1998 and was produced for Maryland Public Television. Dena was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her editing work on the children’s program, Reading Rainbow. Dena is currently editing Micah Schaffer's Death Of Two Sons which is funded by HBO. Advisors: Cyrus Mehta is the managing member of Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, P.L.L.C., an established law firm practicing in the area of US Immigration and Nationality law in New York City. Since 2003, Mr. Mehta has been the Secretary of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The Association, which has been in existence for over 130 years, works at political, legal and social reform, and maintaining high ethical standards for the legal profession. Through his leadership, the Committee has also advocated against the eroding rights of non-citizens following the government’s vigorous enforcement efforts post September 11. In 2004, Mr. Mehta was appointed Chairman of the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) – an immigration think tank that advances the positive impact of immigration in this country and also conducts litigation on behalf of immigrants. Greg Robinson is Assistant Professor of History, University of Quebec At Montreal. Greg Robinson, assistant professor of history at the University of Quebec, author of By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Harvard University Press, 2001). Publishers Weekly calls his book a “lucid, comprehensive and balanced examination” of Roosevelt's decision and the influences upon him: “Conscientious arguments and meticulous documentation movingly clarify a little-understood failure of American democracy.” He has 6

Konrad Aderer [email protected]

www.lifeorliberty.org

Enemy Alien NAATA Media Fund proposal

helped organized the Historians' Committee for Fairness, an organization of scholars and professional researchers, who have debated recent efforts by government appointees and authors to justify the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. Ling-chi Wang is professor of ethnic studies and Asian American studies at the University of California at Berkeley. The preeminent voice and scholar of Asian America, Wang led efforts to release Wen Ho Lee, and has for decades been an outspoken voice on civil liberties issues. He has been interviewed on Asian American history in the PBS documentaries The Chinatown Files, directed by Amy Chen, and Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, co-written and produced by Bill Moyers and Thomas Lennon. J.T. Takagi is a filmmaker, teacher and sound recordist. Her current project North Korea: Beyond The DMZ, was recently shown at the Margaret Mead documentary festival. As a sound recordist she has worked on many documentaries, including the PBS series History Of The Blues, Matters Of Race, This Far By Faith, I'll Make Me A World, The Murder Of Emmett Till and the just released Citizen King. A recipient of many grants and fellowships, Takagi was a 2001 Charles Revson fellow at Columbia and is currently an NVR/Rockefeller Media Fellow.

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Konrad Aderer

Enemy Alien

PROJECT SUMMARY In Enemy Alien, a Japanese American filmmaker involves himself in the two-year struggle to free Farouk Abdel-Muhti, a Palestinian immigrant detained in the wake of 9/11. Intertwined with the unfolding story is the personal journey of a Japanese American uncovering increasingly disturbing echoes of his family's World War II internment. DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLE WORK Enemy Alien in-progress sample Director: Konrad Aderer This sample presents the premise and main storyline of the documentary. Low-resolution archival images are used, and the music has been drawn from other sources. For the completed project, Peter Darmi will compose an original score and rights will be secured for other music. STATUS OF PROGRAM TO DATE This project, originally titled Life or Liberty, received grants from Manhattan Community Arts Fund, The Funding Exchange, and Rooftop Films, and in-kind support from independent producers Off Ramp Films, JESK Productions and Bright Box Media. With these resources I was able to shoot Farouk’s fast-moving storyline and produce short documentaries which I used in organizing for Farouk and other detainees. As I built strong relationships with community and legal organizations, the access and trust which emerged from these relationships fostered the development of the strong dramatic storyline involving Farouk and myself. The participation of Sam Pollard is helping further the project toward completion. I have shot 46 hours of footage – 30 hours of coverage of Farouk’s story, 10 hours with my grandmother and other camp survivors, and 6 hours of expert interviews. Future production will ground the storylines in visuals and further interviews with the people involved, to shoot focused interviews with experts and historical subjects, and to conclude the stories of Tariq and Farouk’s supporters. Substantial media and archival research will shape the present-day and WWII-era history. To tell Farouk’s story, funds are also needed to find and make masters of coverage by Democracy Now!, WBAI, ABC TV and German television station Der Spiegel. This project was accepted to Phase III of the last ITVS Open Call in Winter 2004 and Spring 2005. Since then I have shot some additional footage and made significant changes which reflect the evolution of the project and incorporate the feedback from ITVS other funders, and consultants.

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