"Samurai in the Oregon Sky" Documentary Screening and Q&A

Summer with the Library

A story of reconciliation: from WWII target to "second home."

A Q&A with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

On September 9, 1942, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita catapulted his seaplane off of a submarine, flew over the forests of the southern Oregon coast, and conducted the only manned aerial bombings of the United States mainland during WWII. He never dreamed he would one day be invited back to the region, where he would begin a 35-year friendship with the people of a small Oregon town. Samurai in the Oregon Sky tells the story of how Mr. Fujita came to refer to his former target as his “second home.”

Ilana Sol is a filmmaker and archival producer living in Portland, Oregon. She has worked in the film industry for over 25 years on a variety of independent, educational, and commercial projects. She enjoys searching through archives to find unknown stories about American history, which led to the making of her two documentary films. The first film, On Paper Wings (2008), won seven awards.  It was written about in Smithsonian Magazine and was included in an episode of NPR’s Radiolab.  Samurai in the Oregon Sky (2019) is her second film and has won three awards. Both tell stories of post-WWII peace and reconciliation.

Ilana’s love of archival research led her to obtain a master’s degree in Library Science with a concentration in Archives.  She now works predominantly as an archival producer, combining her two passions of documentary film and archives.  Her work as an archival producer can be seen in multiple documentaries including Leave No Trace (available on Hulu), Trees, and Other Entanglements (available on HBO), I Am: Celine Deon (available on Amazon), and The Winding Stream. She has also conducted research for exhibits at the Smithsonian, the Oregon Historical Society, and other museums. 

To find out more about her work, please explore the websites for her two films, On Paper Wings and Samurai in the Oregon Sky 

Questions? Contact jennym@deschuteslibrary.org