Tadashi Nakamura is a Japanese American filmmaker whose body of work includes short films that highlight the Asian American experience. His recent film "Mele Murals" won many festival awards and was broadcast on PBS in 2017. Other film credits include "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings" which was also broadcast on PBS in 2013. Tad is Robert Nakamuraʼs son and protégé. The two have worked closely together in the classroom and in the field. Currently Tad is in production on Third Act, a very personal and intimate film about his father.
Third Act is a deep dive into the life and work of pioneering photographer and filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, made by his son and colleague Tadashi Nakamura. On its surface, the documentary is a biography that explores the elder filmmaker's public role as "the Godfather of Asian American film." But with his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, the film's undercurrent poses a question at once personal and universal: how can a father and son say goodbye?