Six American Navy veterans were interviewed for WINGS OF DEFEAT about surviving a kamikaze assault on their ship. After seeing the completed film, in which former kamikaze reveal that they were ordered to die, two veterans, Fred Mitchell and Gene Brick asked to meet their former enemies. Fred Mitchell wants to try to shed the hatred he has harbored for the Japanese who sank his ship and killed his friends. Sixty years later he still suffers from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and hopes that meeting former kamikaze face to face will help ease the burden of his nightmarish memories. Gene Brick simply wants to know why the kamikaze had been so eager to kill themselves crashing into enemy ships.

In August 2007, the filmmakers traveled to Japan with Fred and Gene, introducing them to three former kamikaze pilots. Overcoming their respective anxieties, the American and Japanese veterans, now in their 80s, sit down to ask each other the hard questions, sharing an unexpected intimacy and forming new-found mutual respect. As the former enemies laugh and cry together, we witness genuine and transformative reconciliation.

Risa Morimoto will be in attendance.

See also: WINGS OF DEFEAT and Documentary Subjects, Female Gaze

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