![\"Father](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\tFor years, filmmaker Robert Nakamura \u2013 known as the \u201cgodfather of Asian American media\u201d \u2013 taught a class at UCLA on ethno-communications. Among his thousands of students across the decades was his son, Tadashi Nakamura.<\/p>\n
\n\tTaking that class inspired Tadashi to become a filmmaker himself. As his father reached his 80s, Tadashi determined to fulfill a long-held dream, bordering on an imperative, to make a documentary about his pioneering contributions to the arts and American life. The result of his efforts, Third Act, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and has emerged as an Oscar contender.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think the power of the film is that he is so vulnerable in front of the camera, and I do think that\u2019s because he knew that he wanted to do anything for me, including being as vulnerable as possible for me to make the best film possible,\u201d Tadashi said as he took part in a panel discussion after a screening of Third Act for Deadline\u2019s For the Love of Docs event series. \u201cHe does say later in the film too, if it was anyone else, he wouldn\u2019t be as open, and I really think that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\tFather and son: Bob Nakamura is dabbed by Tadashi Nakamura before an interview for \u2018Third Act.\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCenter for Asian American Media\/Independent Lens<\/p>\n
\n\tTadashi added, \u201cI think he would never want to do a film on himself. He didn\u2019t have that big of an ego. He was pretty humble, and I\u2019m always the one that would do the bragging for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThere was much to brag about. Robert \u201cBob\u201d Nakamura had survived incarceration as a boy in the Japanese American internment camp at Manzanar in central-eastern California during World War II. As a young man he overcame entrenched racism to become a successful commercial photographer and then, feeling creatively unsatisfied by that work, embarked on a filmmaking career that would see him document the Japanese American experience in such films as Manzanar (1972), Wataridori: Birds of Passage (1974) and Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (1980).<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\tBob Nakamura as a young photographer<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCenter for Asian American Media\/Independent Lens<\/p>\n
\n\tBob\u2019s wife, Karen Ishizuka \u2014 Tadashi\u2019s mother \u2014 collaborated with her husband on many of his films.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBob always teased that the only reason he married me was for me to produce his films. I think partly it was true \u2014 not really \u2014 but we had a really good working relationship,\u201d Ishizuka said during the panel discussion. \u201cAs I talked to other couples and other partners in the creative process, they often wondered how we could do that. But somehow it was very natural. He was sort of typically supportive and yet at the same time got his points across. So, for example, I\u2019d have him read a draft [of a script] and I could tell that it wasn\u2019t quite up to speed when he says, \u2018Well, you want to eat something?\u2019 \u2026 I said, \u2018OK, that means that I\u2019ve got to go back to the drafting board.\u2019 \u2026 We had our disagreements, of course, but I think as I look back, it was really a very rich relationship both as husband and wife and as sort of creative partners as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIshizuka saw the film evolve in her son\u2019s hands \u2013 from what he originally intended as a \u201cstandard biography portrait\u201d to something much deeper: an intergenerational story of a Japanese American family\u2019s attempt to thrive in an America that often treated people of their ethnicity with intense suspicion and prejudice. For Bob, the film meant reflecting on the most painful and formative experience of his life \u2013 being confined as a boy in a concentration camp.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFrom my perspective, it was really the perfect storm in that it enabled [Bob] to really talk about his past and reveal things that he had never done before \u2014 with a goal,\u201d Ishizuka observed. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t just to get things off his chest. For him, it really was tied into \u2026 wanting to do this for [Tad] \u2026 It really ended up, because [Bob] was such a filmmaker, being very both cathartic for both Tad and Bob, but also with a goal in mind. It wasn\u2019t just ego-centered. He really did want to help make this film be as good as he could possibly have.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\tFrom left: Paulo \u201cPrince\u201d Nakamura, Tadashi Nakamur and Robert Nakamura attend the \u2018Third Act\u2019 premiere during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCindy Ord\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere was a point when I realized how special these conversations were. Me being the director and a son, the director part of me would probably ask the hard questions that me as a son would never ask,\u201d Tadashi noted. \u201cI think there was a moment where we both realized this was probably a great opportunity \u2014 it might be the last opportunity for us to ask all the questions we ever wanted to ask each other. And also, especially for him, to tell all the things he always wanted to tell his son before it was too late. So, I think once we realized the unique special quality of the process, then we really tried to expand it and including my own anxiety about making the film and both of our struggles with dealing with his. And I think that was the one thing that was very unexpected was my dad revealing the trauma, the mixed emotions that he had about, especially his dad, my jiichan, as well as his ambivalence about Manzanar itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tEurie Chung produced the film along with Tadashi Nakamura. She had taken Bob Nakamura\u2019s class at UCLA as well and credits it with steering her career path into filmmaking.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBob was a professor in both film and television and Asian American studies there,\u201d Chung recalled. \u201cTad was actually my TA because he was TA\u2019ing for Bob at that point. I got to L.A. in 2002, took that class in 2003, and it was basically the reason why I\u2019m sitting here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tChung sees a link today between the Trump administration\u2019s roundup of alleged undocumented people across the country and the experience of Bob Nakamura and thousands of other Japanese Americans who were dispatched to internment camps in the 1940s.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty clear parallel if you even go now to Manzanar [a U.S. National Historic Site], there are signs \u2026 that you can\u2019t speak negatively about the U.S. government,\u201d Chung said. \u201cSo it\u2019s not just the direct parallels of people being incarcerated without due process because of the color of their skin. It is also the fact that we are not \u2018allowed\u2019 to talk about it. I say \u2018allowed\u2019 in quotes, but there\u2019s a push to bury this history, and we can kind of see the impacts of what not talking about it within their own family that deeply impacted Bob growing up. \u2026 I think the Asian American experience of understanding that history is so fundamental to why we speak out, why we make movies, why it\u2019s essential to keep telling this story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tChung added: \u201cIt\u2019s been a very surreal process of releasing this movie and showing this movie in the year 2025 in the second Trump administration. It really underscores a lot of the reasons why the film was made and the importance of examining that history and also understanding the deeply personal impacts that it has, the intergenerational trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWatch the full conversation in the video above.<\/p>\n