Robert A. Nakamura

Heralded as “the Godfather of Asian American media,” Robert A. Nakamura was profoundly shaped by his childhood incarceration in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, an experience that informed his lifelong exploration of identity, memory, and belonging through activist filmmaking. In landmark works like the intimate documentary MANZANAR—one of the first films to confront Japanese internment from a personal perspective—the lyrical WATARIDORI: BIRDS OF PASSAGE, and the groundbreaking epic HITO HATA: RAISE THE BANNER, Nakamura told stories long excluded from the American narrative, paving the way for the vibrant Asian American independent cinema movement that would flourish in the 1980s. His life and legacy are explored from an intimate vantage in THIRD ACT, a moving documentary by his son Tadashi Nakamura, also presented here.