Film: Benkyodo and Atomic Café, Screening and Filmmaker Discussion

Watch the Saturday afternoon matinee screening of BENKYODO: The Last Manju Shop in J-Town and Atomic Café, followed by a discussion with Erin Kimura and Tad Nakamura, independent filmmakers.

About Benkyodo

Ricky and Bobby Okamura, the current owners of Benkyodo mochi shop, established in 1906, make a difficult decision to close their family business. The Japanese pastry shop, a landmark for Japanese/Asian Americans in the Bay Area, is one of two mochi shops currently open in the San Francisco-Bay Area. Currently 115 years old, the business has endured the anti-Asian laws of the early 20th century, Japanese internment, Redevelopment of the 1960s and continues to weather San Francisco’s notorious high costs of living. The unsurmountable economic pressure, coupled with the two brother’s desire to preserve their Japanese heritage, family business and community space, create an age-old conflict many children of diaspora face--between the laborious preservation of culture or the submission to the economic forces of capitalism.

NR, 16 minutes, 2023.

About Atomic Café

In the late 1970's, when L.A.'s punk rock scene was exploding, an unlikely family-owned restaurant in Little Tokyo started by Japanese Americans returning from America's WWII concentration camps, became one its most popular hang-outs. That's when Sansei "Atomic Nancy" with her "take-no-prisoners" punk make-up and demeanor took the cafe over from her parents and cranked up the jukebox. Infamous for its eclectic clientele - from Japanese American locals and kids from East L.A. to yakuza and the biggest rock stars of the day - the Atomic Café became an important part of L.A.'s punk rock history.

NR, 10 minutes, 2020. 

About Erin Kimura: Producer of Benkyodo

Eryn Kimura (she, they) is a mixed media visual artist, and cultural and community organizer based on the unceded territory of the Ramaytush-speaking Ohlone people - San Francisco. A fifth generation San Franciscan, Eryn’s work - whether through teaching in the classroom or pasting on the walls - celebrates and archives the polycultural city that raised her. Currently, Eryn serves as the Associate Director of Community Resiliency Programs at the city’s oldest Black-led and Black-serving organization, Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. This is Eryn’s first film.

About Tadashi (Tad) Nakamura: Director of Benkyodo and Atomic Café

Emmy-winning filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura was named one of CNN's "Young People Who Rock" for being the youngest filmmaker at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and listed as one of the "Top Rising Asian American Directors" on IMDb. The fourth-generation Japanese American recently completed Mele Murals, a documentary on the transformative power of modern graffiti art and ancient Hawaiian culture for a new generation of Native Hawaiians. Mele Murals was broadcasted on PBS and Al Jazeera, and was nominated for an Emmy in 2018. His previous film Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings was broadcasted nationally on PBS and went on to win the 2013 Gotham Independent Film Audience Award, which was in competition with 12 Years a Slave and Fruitvale Station. Nakamura's trilogy of documentary films on the Japanese American experience, Yellow Brotherhood (2003), Pilgrimage (2007) and A Song for Ourselves (2009) have garnered over 20 awards. Nakamura has a M.A. in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz, a B.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA where he graduated Summa Cum Laude.