

JANM is proud to present the Los Angeles premiere of Third Act at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival on May 3. Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura “the godfather of Asian American media,” but his son and the director of JANM’s Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center, Tadashi Nakamura, calls him Dad. As Parkinson’s disease clouds Robert’s memory, Tad sets out to retrieve his story—and in the process discovers his own.
Using the lessons Robert taught him, Tad deciphers the legacy of an aging man who was just a child when he survived America’s concentration camps, a successful photographer who gave it up to tell his own story, an activist at the dawn of a social movement—and a father whose struggles won his son freedoms that eluded Japanese Americans of his generation. Throughout the years they have made films together, with Robert always by Tad’s side. Third Act is most likely their last.
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Tadashi Nakamura’s Third Act: A Son’s Tribute to Legacy and Loss
Discover Nikkei talked to Tad Nakamura about the challenges and rewards of living up to a family legacy thread throughout Tad Nakamura’s new documentary, Third Act. The film is a tribute to legendary filmmaker, artist, activist, and teacher, Robert Nakamura. Often referred to as “the Godfather of Asian American cinema,” Tad’s father, Robert, is both subject and collaborator on Third Act.