Cast
“Charlie” Chin, Warren T. Furutani, Alan Iijima, Chris Iijima, Christopher Iijima, Jane Dickson Iijima, Kazu Iijima, Tak Iijima, Mari Matsuda, Nobuko Miyamoto

Tadashi Nakamura: Cinematographer/DP, Editor, Print Return, Print Shipper, Submission Contact
Tadashi Nakamura is a 28 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.

Nakamura has a M.A. in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz, a B.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA and was born and raised in Los Angeles.