UCLA PROFESSOR ROBERT NAKAMURA'S DOCUMENTARY ON TOYO MIYATAKE
RECEIVES TOP HONORS AT 2002 SAVANNAH FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL. SPECIAL
SCREENING IN LOS ANGELES ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24.

LOS ANGELES --Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray, a documentary
tribute to the life and art of Japanese American photographer Toyo
Miyatake produced by the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center of the
Japanese American National Museum, garnered top honors at the 2002
Savannah Film and Video Festival, an international showcase and
competition held every October in Savannah, Georgia, and special
recognition for the documentaryís producer.

Selected from a field of over 500 entries, the 30-minute production
was first awarded Best Short Documentary and then producer Karen
Ishizuka went on to receive HBO Filmís Producer Award, the top
overall festival prize. Ishizuka, Senior Producer of the Watase Media
Arts Center of the National Museum and director Robert A. Nakamura,
Artistic Director of the Watase Center and Director of the Center for
EthnoCommunications of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, were
on hand to receive the awards before a packed house of 1,200 at the
Festivalís gala awards ceremony that closed two weeks of competition,
workshops and special film screenings.

Ishizuka and Nakamura were thrilled that the Miyatake film had been
selected for best in its category, but winning the top award in the
overall competition was totally unexpected. Ishizuka
commented, "Usually best of show awards go to feature films - rarely
to documentaries and hardly ever to short docs, especially with
minority subject matter. In my acceptance remarks, I indicated that
film is always a collaborative effort and that I was accepting the
award on the behalf of Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese
American National Museum, Miyatake family and all the others who put
so much love and energy into the project.î

Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray, an Official Sundance Film
Festival Selection, 2002 and recipient of the Florida Film Festival
Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short was edited by Gail
Yasunaga, with videography by John Esaki, digital effects by Masaki
Miyagawa and music written and composed by David Iwataki. Other
awards include the CINE Golden Eagle, Aurora Gold Award, Worldfest
Houston Bronze Award and Telly Award. It has been featured nationally
in New York, Washington DC, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Carolina,
Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago and San Francisco.


Professor Nakamura is a faculty member in Asian American Studies and
the Department of Film and Television at UCLA, and holds the academic
chair in Japanese American Studies at the university. He is also the
Associate Director of the Asian American Studies Center.


A special Little Tokyo screening and panel will be held at 2pm on
Sunday, November 24th at the George and Sakaye Aratani Japan America
Theatre of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center
(JACCC), 244 S. San Pedro, in Little Tokyo. Co-presented by the JACCC
and the Japanese American National Museum, this special event is co-
sponsored by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Concerned
Asian Pacific Islander Students for Action (CAPSA) and USCís Asian
American Studies Program and Asian Pacific American Student Services
(APASS). For more information on the screening, call the JACCC at
(213) 628-2725. For more information on Toyo Miyatake: Infinite
Shades of Gray, call the National Museum at (213) 625-0414.
--
Don T. Nakanishi, Ph.D.
Director and Professor
UCLA Asian American Studies Center
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546
phone:310.825.2974
fax:310.206.9844
e-mail:dtn@...
web site for Center: www.sscnet.ucla.edu/aasc