Third Act, the latest film from second-generation documentarian Tad Nakamura turns the lens inward, exploring his own father exploring Robert Nakamura’s story with remarkable intimacy. Known as the “Godfather of Asian American Media,” Nakamura dedicated his career to amplifying underrepresented Asian American voices, while battling his own demons. Racial trauma reveals itself in layers of complexity in Third Act, a poignant and deeply personal documentary about the life and legacy of filmmaker and activist Robert Nakamura. Yet “Trauma is not black and white,” said the younger Nakamura during our interview for CAAM. What began as a tribute to his father’s groundbreaking work soon became an unexpected journey into the emotional and psychological toll of his experiences. The filmmaking process coincided with Robert Nakamura’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, which, according to Tad Nakamura, “really opened him up” to deeper vulnerability. As a result, he was able to fulfill his deep desire to help his son create “the best film possible”—specifically a film with “less history and more soul.” Through this unique intergenerational collaboration, Third Act offers a moving meditation on memory, family, and the traumas that shape an Asian American activist and filmmaker’s life.
Born in Los Angeles, Robert Nakamura was incarcerated as a child at Manzanar, a WWII American concentration camp in the Eastern Sierra. Third Act reveals the complex role Manzanar played in Robert Nakamura’s life as a place of immense trauma but also community. Tad Nakamura shares that while Manzanar destroyed his father’s concept of self and family, “any nostalgia, good memories he has as a child is in camp.” In one scene, Robert takes his young grandson Prince to Manzanar for the first time and the child notes how “beautiful” the place is as the camera pans across majestic mountains and blue skies. It was “almost like a homecoming” for his dad, according to Tad. In the course of looking back at what Manzanar has meant for the elder Nakamura–whose first film was the classic documentary short Manzanar (1972)–Third Act transforms Manzanar from “a place of shame and maybe even guilt to a place of empowerment for the next generation.” Through this multifaceted portrait of trauma and places of trauma, as represented by how Third Act portrays Manzanar, Tad Nakamura feels he brings “something new to that conversation of camp.”
Third Act also shines light on the struggles against external and internal demons faced by an Asian American activist. Before filming, Tad grew up hearing his father describe “the pressure of Nisei to be whiter than white” but noted that he would talk about it “academically, more broadly, as a generational issue.” But when interviewed for Third Act, Robert Nakamura surprised his son by opening up personally about “the real details and the…darkness of it.”
Robert Nakamura continued his activism through filmmaking, dedicating his career to telling Asian American stories that had long been ignored or erased. His groundbreaking feature Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (1980)—the first Asian American feature film—gave voice to Japanese American laborers and their struggles, while his commitment to fostering new generations of storytellers led him to establish the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications in 1996, where he also taught as a professor. For Robert Nakamura, filmmaking was not just an artistic pursuit but a form of resistance, a means of ensuring that “history doesn’t repeat itself,” as Tad Nakamura, explained.
Yet, through the process of making Third Act, Tad Nakamura uncovered a more experiential dimension to his father’s work. While Robert Nakamura devoted himself to advancing Asian American narratives, filmmaking was also a way to process his own trauma, not just a tool for activism. Even as his reputation grew, Nakamura privately wrestled with self-doubt, questioning whether his “activism and films” were “effective enough.” This inner conflict, laid bare in Third Act, reveals the emotional weight carried by those who commit their lives to fighting injustice, even as they wonder if their efforts will ever be enough.
Watching Third Act, I reflected on Robert Nakamura’s struggles and began relating them to my own journey. When I was a student at UCLA, I was well aware of Robert Nakamura and his EthnoCommunications class, where Asian American Studies students created films about their communities. I had a strong passion for documentary filmmaking and Asian American media representation, yet I never pursued the opportunity to take his course. Third Act forced me to confront an unsettling question: had I subconsciously distanced myself from Asian American Studies, even as I championed its importance? These contradictions, this push-and-pull between embracing and resisting one’s identity, are endemic to racial trauma.
Third Act also shows how racial trauma extends across generations. When I asked Tad Nakamura how different generations approach racism and racial trauma, he observed that “each generation is more intentional, but at the same time… we have to evolve and find our own identities.” His father, Robert Nakamura, grew up in the shadow of World War II and the horrors of U.S. concentration camps. Tad Nakamura himself came of age during the “Reagan era,” witnessing the “Gulf Wars,” as he told me. The documentary shows how Tad Nakamura played football, an extremely “American” sport, and how his father attended every game–choosing to be more present in his childrens’ lives. Now, as Tad noted, his own children are growing up in the Trump era, navigating their own set of bigoted challenges. Each generation, he suggested, must grapple with its own historical context while forging a path forward. But racial trauma is not something that can be neatly resolved. As Tad Nakamura remarked with humor, it doesn’t simply vanish once “you take an ethnic studies class and you figure your identity [and] you’re good.” Rather, one must “continuously wrestle” with it, as Tad Nakamura reflected. Thanks to documentaries like Third Act, audiences of color are not alone, but can draw upon the experiences and wisdom of Robert Nakamura and other elder activists who came before us. And all audiences can benefit from a deeper understanding of the shape racism takes in a person’s life.
Nancy Wang Yuen is a sociologist of the people and evangelist of Asian American cinema.
