Directed by Robert A. Nakamura • 1972 • United States
Created by Robert A. Nakamura as a film student at UCLA Film School’s Ethnocommunications Program, MANZANAR was one of the first films to examine the experience of Japanese American internment from a personal perspective. Lyrical and pensive, it takes its name from the central California Japanese American internment camp that the director called “home” during his childhood. A nisei (second-generation Japanese American), Nakamura reflects on his childhood experiences at Manzanar as he comes to terms with how internment has affected his adult life.
Up Next in Robert A. Nakamura
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Wataridori: Birds of Passage
Directed by Robert A. Nakamura • 1976 • United States
Completed in 1975 as his Master’s Thesis project at the UCLA Film School, Robert A. Nakamura’s WATARIDORI: BIRDS OF PASSAGE stands as one of the quintessential documentary portraits celebrating the legacy of the issei, or first-generation Jap...
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Hito Hata: Raise the Banner
Directed by Robert A. Nakamura and Duane Kubo • 1980 • United States
Starring Mako, Hiroshi Kashiwagi, Pat MoritaThe first feature-length film made by and about Asian Pacific Americans, Robert A. Nakamura and Duane Kubo’s HITO HATA: RAISE THE BANNER captures the contributions and hardships of J...
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Third Act
Directed by Tadashi Nakamura • 2025 • United States
Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura “the Godfather of Asian American media,” but his son, Tad, calls him Dad. As the filmmaking son of a filmmaking legend, Tad uses the lessons his dad taught him to decipher the legacy of an aging ma...
