VIDEOS

Master of Arts, Social Documentation

University of California, Santa Cruz

Bachelor of Arts, Asian American Studies, Summa Cum Laude

University of California, Los Angeles

Ebata Memorial Community Artist Award, 2009

Official Selection – Sundance Film Festival, Pilgrimage - Sundance Film Festival, 2008

Best Director, Pilgrimage - Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival, 2008

Best Documentary, Pilgrimage - Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival, 2008

Best Editor, Pilgrimage - Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival, 2008

Best Historical Short Film, Pilgrimage - FirstGlance Film Festival, 2008

New Directors / New Visions Award, Pilgrimage - Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, 2007

Best Documentary Short Jury Prize, Pilgrimage - Sacramento Film & Music Festival, 2007

Best Documentary Short, Pilgrimage - Asian Film Festival of Dallas, 2007

Best Student Film, Pilgrimage - Honolulu International Film Festival, 2007

Best Documentary Short Award, Yellow Brotherhood - San Diego Asian Film Festival, 2004

Chancellor’s Service Award - University of California, Los Angeles, June 2003

Yuri Kochiyama Award - University of California, Los Angeles, June 2003

Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, 2003

Golden Key Honor Society, 2002

National Society of Collegiate Scholars, 2000

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Tadashi Nakamura is a 29 year old, fourth-generation Japanese American and second-generation filmmaker. His introduction to film began when he was 9 days old and made his first and last on-screen appearance in Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (1980), the first feature-length narrative film produced by Asian Americans, which was directed by his father, award-winning filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura. Besides carrying on his parents’ work – his mother is writer/producer Karen L. Ishizuka – Nakamura seeks to tell his community’s history to a new generation.

A SONG FOR OURSELVES is the third installment of Nakamura’s trilogy on the early Asian American Movement. The first film of the trilogy was Yellow Brotherhood (2003), a personal documentary about the meaning of friendship and community through a youth organization called YELLOW BROTHERHOOD, which was formed in the 1960s to help youth get off drugs. It won Best Documentary Short at the San Diego Asian Film Festival.  The second was PILGRIMAGE (2007), which tells the story of how an abandoned WWII concentration camp for Japanese Americans was transformed into a symbol of retrospection and solidarity for people of all nationalities in our post 9/11 world.  It was an official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and has garnered nine awards of excellence including three for Best Short Documentary.  With A SONG FOR OURSELVES, he completes his homage to the importance of the early Asian American Movement and passes on its passion in the hopes of inspiring young people to continue to work - and sing - for social justice.