THIRD ACT

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Generations of artists call Robert “Bob” Nakamura “The Godfather of Asian American film,” but his son, Tad, calls him Dad. As the filmmaking son of a filmmaking legend, Tad uses the lessons his dad taught him to decipher the legacy of an aging man who was a child survivor of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, 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 have won his son freedoms that eluded Japanese Americans of his generation. As Parkinson’s Disease clouds his memory, Tad sets out to retrieve his story—and in the process discovers his own. The two have made films together, with Bob always by Tad’s side.

World premiering in U.S. Documentary Competition at this year’s Sundance, THIRD ACT shines a deserved spotlight on the dynamic and groundbreaking legacy of Bob, who paved the way for others to tell their stories. It also represents the continuation of a tradition with Tad’s own incredible body of work in amplifying AAPI and NHPI stories (directing Hawai‘i films JAKE SHIMABUKURO-A LIFE ON FOUR STRINGS and MELE MURALS). Bob’s pioneering vision laid the foundation for Asian American cinema, and that legacy lives on powerfully through Tad, as he becomes the new steward of the “family business” — amplifying community voices and carrying forward a tradition of storytelling rooted in identity, activism, and cultural pride.