New Film on Legendary Filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura to have Los Angeles Premiere May 3

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) announces the Los Angeles premiere of Third Act on Saturday, May 3, 2025, at 6 p.m. at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center as part of the 41st LA Asian Pacific Film Festival presented by Visual Communications. Directed by Tadashi Nakamura, the director of JANM’s Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center (MAC), Third Act was an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The first documentary film (running time: 91 minutes) that looks at the life and times of Robert A. Nakamura, a legendary photographer, filmmaker, activist, and cofounder of JANM’s Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center. Tickets to the screening are $20 and are available at laapff2025.eventive.org/schedule.

Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura “The Godfather of Asian American film,” but his son and the MAC Director, Tadashi Nakamura, calls him Dad. 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.

“Third Act will open many eyes by educating the audience to what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. And it will move many hearts by presenting a story of perseverance and how some people make their life’s work stand for more than just a personal accomplishment,” wrote Murtada Elfadl for Variety. “It’s a lively and moving portrait of a family that recognizes that despite all the hardships they have survived, they are lucky to have accomplished so much and luckier to be together.”

“Third Act may have started off as a loving tribute to a cinematic force, but it evolves into a richly layered examination of the generational effects of segregation, grief, parenthood, and art’s ability to help us make sense of it all. As the finality of life, which once felt so far away, moves increasingly nearer, Robert’s introspection on his life and works reveal some hard truths that even shocks his son. Discovering for the first time that his father has had a longstanding battle with depression, Nakamura is forced to recontextualize the man who he views as a hero and the inspiration for his own cinematic endeavours,” wrote Courtney Small for Point of View Magazine.

A program of JANM, MAC is an Emmy Award–winning production company that tells the stories of Japanese Americans, both historical and present day, and promotes thoughtful exploration of America’s pluralistic society through an innovative program of media documentation and preservation, production, and presentation. MAC has been home to groundbreaking filmmakers including Robert A. Nakamura, John Esaki, Justin Lin, Akira Boch, and current MAC Director, Tadashi Nakamura, and continues to develop the next generation of community storytellers.

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over one hundred exhibitions onsite while traveling forty exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond from early January 2025 through late 2026. For more information, visit janm.org/OnTheGo or follow us on social media @jamuseum.