Daily Newsletters
Account
Washington Evening Journal
111 North Marion Avenue
Washington, IA 52353
319-653-2191
‘Jerry’s Last Mission’ coming to Fairfield arts center
FAIRFIELD — The film on the life story of former Fairfield resident and World War II fighter pilot Jerry Yellin is coming to the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.
The film, “Jerry’s Last Mission,” will be shown at 7 p.m. Sept. 14-15 in the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts. It will be the first time the film has been shown publicly in Fairfield since its online debut in late 2021.
Fairfield residents Jim and Ginger Belilove, who helped produce the film, plan to share a few words before the showings, and plan to answer questions from the audience afterward. Fairfield resident Amine Kouider, who also worked on the project, plans to attend the Sept. 14 showing, too.
Jim Belilove said the film has been submitted to over a half dozen film festivals around the country, and has been shown in places with a special connection to Yellin, such as in his home state of New Jersey and his adopted state of Florida, where he spent his final years. Now it is coming to one of his other homes, Fairfield, where he lived for more than a decade, and where he met Louisa Merino, the director who was inspired to make this film about his life.
Earlier this year, the film was shown at the G.I. Film Festival in San Diego, which features military-themed movies. Merino was honored with the award for Best New Director at the festival.
Yellin died Dec. 21, 2017, at age 93. He was laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Jim Belilove said he was glad that, just before he passed, Yellin got to watch a rough cut of the documentary.
“I said to him, ‘Jerry, is this your story? Is this how you want your story represented?’” Jim said. “He gave me two thumbs-up.”
The film “Jerry’s Last Mission” tells the story of P-51 fighter pilot Jerry Yellin, who flew combat missions over Iwo Jima and Japan and who returned home with “a dark life of post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor’s guilt and thoughts of suicide.” The documentary tells how Yellin learned to overcome PTSD and how he was forced to face his hated enemy once again when his youngest son moved to Japan and married the daughter of a Kamikaze pilot.
“It’s a moving story of resilience, of reconciliation, and of hatred turned to love,” according to the film’s Facebook page.
The film has been endorsed by celebrities such as director David Lynch and actor Gary Sinise, famous for his role as Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump.”
Merino got to know Yellin when the two were both living in Fairfield. In 2015, while Merino was working for David Lynch Foundation Television as a senior editor and story producer, she met a man in the Roosevelt Aquatic Center who was “running” laps in the pool, not swimming. It was Yellin.
Merino struck up a conversation with him, and learned about his fascinating life, about how he flew the last mission over Japan in World War II, how he battled post-traumatic stress after the war, and how his view of the Japanese changed when his son Robert married a Japanese woman.
Merino followed Yellin all over the country and the globe, including his move to Florida, where he lived with his son Steven, and on a trip to Japan in 2015 after the death of his wife, Helene. Yellin made the trip because he wanted to spread half of her ashes in the country that she came to love.
In the last few years of his life, Yellin traveled frequently, giving talks on post-traumatic stress and how to address the problem of veterans’ suicides.
Yellin’s son Robert married the daughter of a kamikaze pilot, but the man was sent to China instead of being sent on a suicide mission, so he survived the war. The two men met after the wedding, realized how similar they were, and became friends.
Robert still lives in Japan to this day, and is regarded as one of the experts in Japanese pottery. In fact, when Apple founder Steve Jobs visited Japan, he contacted Robert to show him the country’s pottery galleries.
Jim said the FACC will also have books to purchase about Yellin’s life including his biography “Jerry’s Last Mission,” “Of War and Weddings,” and “The Last Fighter Pilot.”
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
