Nisei Veterans Memorial Center’s monthly movie matinee featuring ‘The Wind Rises’

It’s 1916, a young Horikosh Ito wants to become a pilot, but his nearsightedness prevents it. One night, he dreams of his idol, Italian aircraft designer Battista Caproni, who tells him that he has never flown a plane in his life, but that building planes is better than flying them.

“The Wind Rises” is a fictionalized film about Ito (1903 – 1982), designer of the A5M aircraft and its successor, theA6M Zero, that were used by the Japanese during World War II. The film is an animated drama written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli.

Maui’s Sons and Daughters of the Nisei Veterans is sponsoring the free matinee movie on Feb. 11 at the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center, 665 Kahului Beach Road in Kahului. Doors open at 1 p.m. and the films begin at 1:30. Admission is free, but reservations are required. Call 808- 244-6862. Fresh-popped popcorn will be served courtesy of Service Rentals.

The story follows Horikoshi’s education, his triumphs and failures and the ultimate realization of his dream to build a magnificent fighter plane. By the end of the film, however, Horikoshi is faced with a deep moral question: “Was this the right thing to do?”

“The Wind Rises” was the highest-grossing Japanese film in Japan in 2013. It received critical acclaim, with praise for its animation, music, screenplay and emotional weight. It was nominated for several awards, including the Award for Best Animated Feature, the Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. 

Voiceover talent for the English version includes the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Martin Short, William H. Macy, Jennifer Grey, Stanley Tucci and John Krasinski. The movie is two hours and six minutes in length.

Curated because of their ties to the Japanese-American experience, each film selected for the monthly movie matinee series connects individuals with larger truths and ideas about society. After all, everything that happens in the world can be written and learned from words and pictures, which through the centuries has shaped civilizations, changed political systems, exposed injustice and observed the human condition. Literature is the foundation of humanity’s cultures, beliefs and traditions, and documentary films paint the picture.

To learn more, visit www.nvmc.org.