CWC Docs: Third Act

Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura the “Godfather of Asian American Media,” but his son Tad calls him Dad. Drawing on the lessons his father taught him, Tad sets out to make the film that he “always knew he had to make,” charting his father’s legacy as a child survivor of the WWII Japanese American incarceration and a successful commercial photographer-turned-activist filmmaker. A co-founder of the Asian American media organization Visual Communications, Robert made some of the first films to explore Asian American identity and memory from a personal vantage point. Third Act (2025) intricately weaves together an array of archival materials and interviews to reflect on his creative eye and decades of filmmaking as a form of resistance. As Parkinson’s disease begins to cloud Robert’s memory, the film shifts focus into a deeply personal meditation on familial activism, art, grief, and the enduring bonds of fatherhood.

Filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura will join moderator Alexander Cho (Asian American Studies, UCSB)  for a post-screening discussion of Third Act.