LOS ANGELES – A Kickstarter campaign was recently launched for a documentary project. The project aims to tell the story of World War II veterans, who fought in the Philippines.
The Valor Project: World War II Stories from the Philippines is a storytelling endeavor that presents narratives through different mediumst: a documentary film, photography, fiction inspired by true events and WWII veteran interviews, poetry, and creative non-fiction.
The man behind it is none other than Filipino-American writer-filmmaker-photographer Rodney Cajudo, who was born and raised in the US by immigrant Filipino parents.
Growing up, Cajudo knew little about his Filipino heritage. Cajudo uses his work in multimedia arts to explore his Filipino heritage.
In his Kickstarter page, Cajudo said that he created The Valor Project because he wanted to learn more about the history of the Philippines (particularly during WWII) and help shed light on this aspect of American and Philippine history.
The documentary will feature interviews with WW II vets, scholars and people, who lived through WWII.
The “art book” will contain portraits of veterans, photos from historic WWII locations in the Philippines, fictional stories inspired by tales from the vets, and creative non-fiction pieces talking about the era.
In recent years, some aspects of WWII have been portrayed in documentaries and Hollywood movies like Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, and The Pacific. However, WW II tales from the Philippines are mostly unexplored.
“It is our hope that through art and technology, The Valor Project can be a bridge between past and future generations, and [be] a definitive repository of oral history of that era,” Cajudo said.
Cajudo will be joined by other prolific filmmakers and artists in this endeavor. The Valor Project Creative Team includes director/writer Edward J. Malilin, filmmaker and former Fil-Am TV production manager Christine Ramos, graphic design and branding expert Krystal Menez, art book designer Abe Cajudo, musical composer Jonathan Wandag, and Philippine-based filmmakers, Gian Vargas Caluag, Marielle Hizon and Karel Sevilla.
Inspiration
After a 2009 trip to the Philippines, Cajudo learned much about the history of his family and the trials of the Filipinos as a people. He was determined to discover more about what it means to be Filipino.
“On the plane ride back [to the US], I started jotting ideas down in my journal,” Cajudo said to Asian Journal in an email correspondence.
“It was then that an idea to write a novel was born,” he said.
Cajudo wanted to write a novel about the Filipino-American war and make his grandfather the main character. However, as he continued outlining his many ideas in his journal, his concept of the project grew bigger.
From a single novel, Cajudo now envisioned writing a multi-generational historical fiction trilogy loosely based on his family: one during the Filipino-American war, the next during WWII, and then the third during the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
“It was an electric moment of epiphany,” Cajudo said, “My novel was a way to write and explore what it meant to be Filipino-American and understand the sacrifices my father and family had made for us.”
Cajudo began researching, digging up as much material for the project as he can. Since 2009, he has been to the Philippines three times. He made it a point each time to visit historic sites and museums to expand his knowledge.
However, he soon realized that there’s only so much that he can learn from museums and history books.
“I realized that I need to talk to the people that lived and fought in those times,” Cajudo said.
He talked to his father and his uncle, and while they don’t remember much, what they do remember was powerful, Cajudo said.
A friend’s lolo also recounted to Cajudo how the Korean soldiers were worse than their Japanese counterparts, saying that it was them who did most of the atrocities.
The lolo said Filipinos would usually curse out against the Japanese, but when they saw the Koreans they would be quiet. They knew if it was the Koreans just by looking at the shoes — the Japanese wore black shoes, while the Koreans wore brown.
“Details like that are so rich and really bring the story to life,” Cajudo noted.
As he continued to seek out and interview more WWII vets, scholars, and experts, Cajudo thought to himself, why not turn on the camera?
“Why not turn on a camera and create a documentary as well? How can I bring these stories out and share them with future generations?,” he thought.
“And as time has gone on, I’ve learn more and more about this time in history. I really wanted people to hear these stories as well,” he said.
Kickstarting
To gather funds for his project, Cajudo relies on crowdsourcing website Kickstarter. Here, people can pledge as little as one dollar to support the The Valor Project. The project will only be funded if at least $30,000 is pledged by donors by Friday, April 4, 2014, 12:02am PST.
If the Kickstarter campaign doesn’t reach that mark, all the funds will be returned to their respective donors.
“Kickstarter isn’t just a ‘donate’ platform,” Cajudo said, “One of the great and essential aspects of the service is providing donors [with] rewards.”
The rewards are broken down into different tiers. Rewards range from copies of the movie and book, an excerpt from the novel, private access to behind the scenes footage, special downloads of travel footage, to custom backpacks from Equilibrium USG, and even copies of the memoirs of a Filipino War Vet, and so much more.
For more information about The Valor Project, log on to http://thevalorproject.com. To pledge to the Kickstarter campaign, log on to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/898400447/the-valor-project-world-war-ii-stories-from-the-ph.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend March 8-11, 2014 Sec A pg.1)
