*Free
Join us for an enlightening conversation between filmmakers Justin Lin, Robert Nakamura, Karen Ishizuka and John Esaki on the past, present and future of Asian American film. They will show clips and discuss the history of the Asian American film movement, their work at JANM's Watase Media Arts Center, their filmmaking careers, and the future of Asian American film.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
ROBERT NAKAMURA is a pioneering filmmaker and teacher, sometimes referred to as "the Godfather of Asian American media." In 1970 he co-founded Visual Communications (VC) the oldest community-based Asian Pacific American media arts organization in the United States.

Nakamura's personal documentary Manzanar (1972) revisited childhood memories of incarceration in an American concentration camp during World War II and has been selected for major retrospectives on the documentary form at the San Francisco Museum of Art and Film Forum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 1980 he co-directed Hito Hata: Raise the Banner, considered to be one of the first Asian American feature films, produced by and about Asian Americans. He is the recipient of more than 30 national awards. In 1996 he founded the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications where he serves as director and professor. In 1997, the Smithsonian Institution presented a retrospective of his work. Also that year he created (with Ishizuka) the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum. In 1999 he was named to the endowed chair in Japanese American studies at UCLA.

KAREN L. ISHIZUKA is an independent writer, video producer who has returned to complete a Ph.D. in anthropology. She has been a museum curator and media arts administrator and worked at the Japanese American National Museum for the first 15 years of its existence. Her films have been selected for the Sundance, Margaret Mead and Flaherty festivals. Her publications include Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration (University of Illinois Press, 2006) and Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories, co-editor (University of California Press, 2007). She has served on the National Film Preservation Board, been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute, an Activist in Residence at Brown University and practices Bugaku, 8th century Japanese court dance. Her areas of interest are Asian America, specifically the early Asian American movement (ca 1968-1980); life history, autoethnography and community-based media.

JUSTIN LIN’S solo directorial debut, the critically acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Paramount Classics/MTV Films picked up the film and released it in 2003. Renowned film critics including Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper listed Better Luck Tomorrow as one of the top five films of the year. With the success of Better Luck Tomorrow, Lin directed his second solo feature Annapolis, and shortly after directed Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. Lin wrote and directed his third solo feature, Finishing The Game, premiering at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently he directed Fast & Furious, the fourth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise.

While at the National Museum, Justin worked on JANM classics such as J-Town Rhapsody, Interactions, and Crossover.