USA202593 minEnglishOntario PremiereAvailable Online
Robert A. Nakamura a.k.a. Bob is a legend of Asian American media as an educator, activist, and filmmaker. His frequent collaborator, Tadashi Nakamura, or Tad, has always known he wanted to make a film about his dad’s life. But when Bob is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the urgency to make the film becomes more pronounced.
As Tad digs deeper into the documentary, they process the ghosts of his father's past — his incarceration during the Second World War, the traumatic catalyst that drove him to success in his career, but also Bob's depression, personal failings and self hatred, for which only film and community could serve as a salve.
A lovingly honest tribute, Third Act continues Tad’s commitment to community storytelling, this time from the inside out, making this his most personal and challenging film thus far. It is another reminder of the power of our elders and ancestors, that we may move forward, carrying them with us, bravely.
– Aram Siu Wai Collier
Robert Nakamura
Tadashi Nakamura
Karen Ishizuka
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Sundance Film Festival, 2025
BlackStar Film Festival, 2025
Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival, 2025
Tadashi Nakamura
Tadashi Nakamura is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and director of the Watase Media Arts Center. Now with over 20 years of filmmaking experience, his films include Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song In Movement (2024), Mele Murals (2016), Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings (2013), A Song for Ourselves (2009), and Pilgrimage (2006).
8 Nov, 2025 2:30 pm
TIFF Lightbox C3PG
IN PERSON & ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY
IN PERSON: This film is scheduled to be presented fully captioned (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated)
ONLINE : This film is fully captioned in closed captions (all dialogue subtitled + sound cues indicated).
Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Join us for a Q&A immediately after the screening with director Tadashi Nakamura moderated by Reel Asian's artistic director Aram Siu Wai Collier.
A man's attempt at burglary goes wrong when he’s overpowered and captured by the apartment’s elderly owner. Things take a turn for the curiouser when it’s revealed there is a human-sized plaster cast in which the old man has encased his dead wife. To win his freedom, the burglar merely has to accompany the owner to the desert to bury him along with his wife.
In THERE ARE NO WORDS, award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee searches for stories of her mother, Song Ji Lee, who died by suicide when Lee was just 12 years old. Through an intimate archive, Lee confronts public, private, and imagined histories in the wake of trauma while negotiating her relationship with her aging father, who met her mother while serving in the Korean Counterintelligence Corps under dictator Park Chung Hee in 1960s Korea.
Hang out with us for Festival Happy Hour, open to the public! Grab a drink and join in on the casual activities each day.
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian, Asian diasporic, and Asian Canadian artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
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