“Kazuo, a fourth-generation Japanese American, wrestles with the unspoken open secret about his grandfather’s sister's death through a series of conversations and letters.”
I produced To Makiko for the Film 186: Advanced Film Production class at UC Berkeley under J. Mira Kopell. Over the semester, I worked through every phase of production from conception and pre-production to post-production editing and sound mixing.
To Makiko is a film based on my own family and my own experiences talking about grief through the lens of inter-generational Asian American masculinity. Shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio, I sought to create a film that emphasized memory to convey the experience of looking through old family photos.
Shot over the course of a week and a half, we shot in four different locations all across the Bay Area. From filming at Kirby Cove in Marin and the Konko Church of San Francisco to shooting in a variety of apartments in Berkeley, we were able to complete To Makiko with a budget of $1,200.
Shooting at Kirby Cove was the most treacherous of the locations as we were dealing with the elements. Constant wind, an active fire pit, shooting at night in the middle of the woods, and not to mention that Assistant Director Freddie Segura Glavey was hampered with a leg injury (a dog bit him a week prior…). But we got the shots we needed unscathed.
Shooting at the Konko Church was the opposite. Completely controlled and a full circle moment for me because my great-grandfather founded and built the church back in the 20s before World War II and the Japanese Internment.
To Makiko was an emotional film to develop but one that I’m happy to say was well received by my grandfather. While I detail around what was true and what was false in this film are only known to me and my family, I got to the core of what I’ve felt about how emotion and vulnerability are treated in the Japanese American community.
Film Festival Selections:
NAMI Miami-Dade’s 2024 ReelMinds Film Festival
BASH’s 2024 Bay Area Short Film Festival
Starring:
Justin Eitoku-Wong, Tiffany Hsu, Benjamin Hu, Bernie Tom
Crew:
Dir. Kenzo Fukuda | Prod. Kenzo Fukuda Jessie Wu, Mikayla Heslin, Freddie Segura Glavey | 1st AD. Freddie Segura Glavey | 2nd AD. Karin Sugaya | DP. Titi Nguyen | 1st AC. Penelope Martindale, | 2nd AC: Katelyn Villa | Gaffer/Lighting. Bella Reeves | Best Boy: Otto Schmidt | Boom/Audio Mixer: Aidan Owchar, Bella Reeves, Penelope Martindale | Casting Director: Angelica Mosqueda |Music: Bella Reeves
“How do leftovers express what’s unspoken? How do leftovers articulate good intentions? How do leftovers invoke forgotten memories? Alex navigates the generational boundaries of her Asian-American immigrant family, through Tupperwares upon Tupperwares of leftover home-cooked food.”
Tupperware was produced through the Eta Chapter of Delta Kappa Alpha in 2023 with a budget of $1,500. Through the perspective of an old Tupperware bin, this film explores how food is an unspoken emissary of love. Within Asian American families, there tends to be a language barrier between generations, and I wanted to make a film that emphasized how love is expressed in families like mine.
Principle photography took place over the course of a single weekend in three locations: two college apartments in Berkeley and Pho K&K on Telegraph Ave (a real college short film production!). It was one of two DKA films shot and produced that semester.
We almost didn’t have an actor for “Popo” the day of the shoot. I got an email from Cynthia Dear literally less than 12 hours the night before the shoot and we hashed out the details in less than an hour. Cynthia saved the production because we were seriously about to fake a college student into looking like a grandparent.
The rice-washing scene was shot separately from the rest of Tupperware: one day at my house with me, my friend Matt Betti, and my dad Matt Fukuda (two Matt’s lol). It was a fun scene to film, a scene that could have been a short film in itself because it was kind of the perfect metaphor for some of the ideas I was thinking about when I was writing the script.
I also got my aunt to participate as the voice of Mom and I had a lot of fun recording lines with her over the phone. I call my aunt “Yeema” which means “second mother” in Cantonese so this film was a heartwarming way for me to incorporate that title of hers into a film.
Tupperware holds a special place in my filmmaking journey because it is my first short film/production ever! This film essentially taught me how to direct, how to edit, how to use Premiere Pro, how to color grade, how to audio mix, and pretty much everything necessary to even approach filmmaking! And I got to make a film involving my family!
Film Festival Selections:
Savory Stories: An Asian American Showcase
Starring: Vivian Nguyen, Kimi Galang Villegas, Cynthia Dear, Lisa Foon, Matt Fukuda
Crew:
Writer and Dir. Kenzo Fukuda | DP. Bella Reeves | Prod. Antonio Prajin, Kirana Rafli, and Ryan Wexler | Assist. Prod. Abigail Hernandez | Art Dir. Yansu Tan | ACs. Penelope Martindale and Fiona Tieche | AD. Sofia Braid | Script Sup. Freddie G | Casting Dir. Angelica Mosqueda | Gaffing. Yeonhee Choi and Emmett Kneafsey | Sound. Yusef Arifin and Ashley Kumar | BTS. Kayla Sim
“With the mundanity of everyday life slowly inhibiting Sol’s ability to dream, he searches for the remains of his dreams in the depths of his unconscious.”
Dreams of Lost Lights was the final short film I created in J. Mira Kopell’s Film 185: Intermediate Production class at UC Berkeley. It was the only film that semester that was not created under a specified prompt, which led me to get ambitious about the cinematography.
The film changes styles five different times (which is might be a bit excessive in a 12-minute short haha) in an Inception-esque, Paprika-inspired exploration through the dreamscape and the subconscious. This film is the first of many films that dive deep into the idea of dreams and memory that I want to make and as a result, pays homage to several different films including but not limited to, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kurosawa’s Dreams, and a lot of Wong Kar-Wai’s films.
Dreams of Lost Lights is probably my weirdest film but also one I had a lot of fun storyboarding, filming, and editing. Sometimes I think about the story elements I couldn’t get across (ex. the labor induced on people living in capitalist societies) but I am still happy I was able to get this thing shot. It took 5 days of shooting in a very limited run-and-gun style of shooting. So while no day took more than 3 hours to film, it was chaotic to nail down locations.
Starring: Matt Betti, Gavin Richard, Dave Martindale, Angelica Mosqueda
Crew: Written and Dir. Kenzo Fukuda | DP: Penelope Martindale | Assist Dir. Mikayla Heslin | Sound/Script Sup. Freddie G. | Gaffing: Matt Betti and David Arcos | Sound Assist./Drone Specialist.Gavin Richard | PA: Quincy Martindale
This video was created for Philip Gotanda's Opera: Both Eyes Open which aired at Zellerbach’s Berkeley Playhouse in February 2025 by Kenzo Fukuda and Bella Reeves. This montage of Darumas scattered around a variety of environments was curated for the lobby display and played before and after the Opera.
A daruma is a traditional Japanese doll modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. It is a talisman of good luck and fortune used to help fulfill specific goals or wishes. When one obtains a daruma, its eyes are unfilled, blank, and white. The owner selects a wish to be fulfilled and fills in the left eye with ink. When the wish is fulfilled, the owner fills in the right eye as a sign their fortune was granted.
The daruma is a significant symbol and role in Both Eyes Open, which covers Jinzo Matsumoto, a Japanese American farmer, as he navigates the unjust internment of the Japanese American community during World War II. The Daruma role in Both Eyes Open signifies the American Dream of Japanese immigrants, unfulfilled promises in the wake of war, and how the United States turned its back on its people.
This lobby display video sought to highlight the symbolism of daruma, imagining them in an assortment of odd locations and unique environments to emphasize how little promises and hopeful wishes exist everywhere waiting to be found. The daruma is positioned in the same spot in the center of the frame of every shot to emphasize how circumstances change but ultimately the desire to dream, how promises are fulfilled or unfulfilled, are fundamental to our being.
This video was viewed by over 600 people over the course of three sold-out shows. It was accompanied by an interview with Professor Michael Omi, an American sociologist and one of the leading scholars on Asian American racial formation theory.
“Matt sucks at shooting free throws so he enlists Zach to train him up.”
Free Throws was the second short film I created in Film 185: Intermediate Film Production. The prompt for this short film was “Two characters, one location,” a bottle episode type of plot.
I opted for a very simple plot between two friends at a basketball court. Shot at Ohlone Park’s only basketball court, filming only took 5 hours. I enlisted my friend Zach “Schligy” Estudillo, my basketball teammate in high school on the San Francisco Associates and classmate at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. Zach’s always been a very talented basketball player but he’s also a fantastic dancer. He’s currently the defacto Cal Basketball floor sweeper with his signature slide and wipe.
Matt on the other hand has only touched a basketball once or twice in his life and his ineptitude on the court was quite literally method acting. The shoot really did teach him how to shoot a free throw!
Starring: Matt Betti, Zach Estudillo
Crew: Written and Dir. Kenzo Fukuda | DP: Josie Haertzen AD: Freddie Glavey | AC and Gaffer: Bella Reeves | Swiss Army Knife: Gavin Richard
“While trying to relax on his me day, Gavin’s tormented by Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ song.”
That’s Life! was the first assignment of Film 185: Intermediate Production. The prompt was, “No dialogue,” and while I tiptoed that line by having Gavin lipsync the song, this film was designed to train our ability to convey things with actions rather than words.
Shot throughout a Saturday at my apartment, filming took 6 hours and a lot of retakes on the singing portion. Gavin did a great job memorizing the lyrics and being consistent with his movements on each take.
Starring: Gavin Richard
Crew:
Dir. Kenzo Fukuda | DP: Penelope Martindale| Assistant Camera/Gaffer: Bella Reeves | Script Supervisor: Freddie G| Production Assistant: Matt Betti | Special Thanks to J. Mira Kopell and Joshua Hyman
