American Masters
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
Marlee Matlin, the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award, looks back on her remarkable life, career, and the complexities of being the “first.”
Far East L.A.
This series traces the hidden history of Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights in Los Angeles through the arts, culture, and activism of Japanese American and Chicano/a/x residents.
- Length
- 4 episodes x 15 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Short-Form Series and Special Projects
Producer/Director
Rubén Guevara III
Rubén Guevara III is an Emmy Award-nominated Chicano filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His most recent project, Con Safos, aired on PBS SoCal’s Artbound, and received two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards. He is a National Endowment for the Humanities and ITVS Development Fellow, and a California Humanities CDP Grant recipient.
Producer
Natsu Furuichi
Natsu Furuichi is a Japanese American producer born and raised in Tokyo, and based in Los Angeles. She’s produced a wide range of content at creative agency Wondros, and health-tech company Tonal. Her notable works include the award-winning, short-form docuseries Dreams produced with NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley.
Director/Editor
Jun Shimizu
Jun Shimizu is an award-winning director, writer, and editor hailing from the border of France/ Switzerland. He has worked in various creative capacities with nonprofits such as UNESCO and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, as well as award-winning production companies TK Digital, mitú, Wondros, Superlative, Zambezi, and Netflix.
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The Film
Far East L.A. is a four-episode series that explores the cultural cross-pollination between the Chicano/a/x and Japanese American residents of two Los Angeles neighborhoods, Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo. They have created an ecosystem that draws from their layered identities and histories.
In the first episode, Doreen Nakama and Adam Martínez, creators of the street food pop-up 'East Los Musubi,' are introduced, and the story of Doreen’s grandparents’ relationship is explored. The episode also features Gajin Fujita, a popular graffiti artist grappling with his identity as a child of Japanese immigrants. The second episode focuses on prodigy Maceo Hernandez, who traveled from East L.A. to Japan to pursue his passion for Taiko drumming while adapting to life with a disability, and MoNa, a rap artist-singer from Kyoto who symbolizes a “glocal” (globally local) identity that straddles a fine line between appreciation and appropriation. The third episode highlights grassroots efforts by J-Town Action & Solidarity to preserve the heritage of Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights and resist cultural erasure. Michelle Hanabusa, a Japanese entrepreneur whose clothing brand combines street fashion and activism to combat anti-Asian attacks, is also featured. In the final episode, the artwork of Japanese Mexican American tattoo artist Shizu Saldamando and her mentor, Salomón Huerta, is explored. The series concludes by showcasing members of Ozomatli, a Chicano/a/x Japanese American band whose first major gig in Little Tokyo launched their internationally celebrated career.
Far East L.A. follows these residents as they fuse cultures and form new worlds spanning music, art, food, grassroots organizing, and politics.
