Movies

The Japan Society will present a film series, “Timeless Japan,” on Friday evenings in October at 6:30 p.m. at the Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post St., San Francisco.

The schedule is as follows:

• Friday, Oct. 3 — “Tampopo” (1986), 104 minutes. Directed by Juzo Itami; starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto. The comic possibilities of food are on the menu when a truck driver and a widow set out to open the perfect noodle shop.

MILL VALLEY — The 31st Mill Valley Film Festival, to be held from Oct. 2 to 12, will include two Japan-related programs.

“The Amazing Osamu Tezuka” (74 minutes) will be shown on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 12 p.m. at the Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley, and Sunday, Oct. 5, at 10:30 a.m. at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 4th St. in San Rafael.

BERKELEY — "Anime Masterpieces," a new screening series highlighting the best in Japanese animated feature films, premieres on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m. at UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive (PFA) with "Grave of the Fireflies" (Hotaro no Haka).

The film, which critic Roger Ebert calls "an emotional experience so powerful it forces a rethinking of animation," will be followed by a panel discussion with leading scholars and authors on the subject of anime.

Following a successful screening of “The Castle of Cagliostro” in March during the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the Center for Asian American Media and the Japantown Merchants Association decided to host another free showing of a Japanese animated feature in the Peace Plaza.

“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,” directed by Mamoru Hosoda, was shown on the evening of Sept. 19 before a full house. Most were prepared for the cold weather, and despite some drizzle at the beginning, it did not rain.

LOS ANGELES — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Steven Okazaki’s 1990 Oscar-winning documentary short “Days of Waiting” on the big screen for one night only on Monday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

It will be followed by Barbara Kopple’s “American Dream,” which won the Oscar for documentary feature that same year.

LOS ANGELES — Steven Okazaki’s “White Light/Black Rain” was a winner at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ 60th Prime-time Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony held on Sept. 13 at the Nokia Theater.

Produced for HBO, the documentary on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was recognized for “exceptional merit in non-fiction filmmaking.” Also nominated were “Oswald’s Ghost” and “Walt Whitman,” both produced for the PBS series “The American Experience.”

FRESNO — In partnership with ESPN Inc., the Nisei Baseball Research Project (NBRP) has announced that ESPN Classic Films will debut the award-winning film “American Pastime” on Friday, Sept. 26, at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

Released by Warner Brothers Films in 2007, “American Pastime” is a story about the dramatic impact World Wa II had on the home front as Japanese American families were uprooted from their everyday lives and placed into internment camps in the early 1940s.

LOS ANGELES — Veteran character actor Clyde Kusatsu has been elected as a board member of the Hollywood Division of the Screen Actors Guild as well as an alternate to SAG’s national board, according to election results announced on Sept. 18.

Kusatsu, whose film and TV career began in the 1970s, ran as part of the Unite for Strength slate of challengers advocating for new leadership of the guild to better fight for their careers against increasingly powerful media conglomerates.

by J.K. YAMAMOTO
Hokubei Mainichi

“Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story,” a documentary about the first Japanese American to play for the NBA, was screened Sept. 14 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinema in San Francisco.

Wat Misaka, a basketball star with the University of Utah in the 1940s, was a first-round draft pick of the New York Knicks in 1947, the same year that Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. But Misaka’s distinction of being the first person of color to play in the NBA is little known to the public or even to sports buffs.

SAN MATEO — The San Mateo Kabuki Group watches a kabuki video each first Sunday of the month at 1:30 p.m. at the Japanese American Community Center, 415 S. Claremont St. in San Mateo.

On Oct. 5, the group will watch "Ukare Shinju," originally known as "Tegusari Shinju," written by Hisashi Inoue.

A large lumber store's young master, Eijiro (played by Nakamura Kankuro), wants to be a playwright. He tries many ways to become famous in the field, but fails every time.