Our Mr. Matsura (2025) Screening and Discussion

Spurlock Museum of World Cultures

600 S. Gregory St.

Urbana, Illinois 61801

(217) 333-2360

Category

Arts & Theater

Hours

April 6, 2026

5:30pm - 8:00pm

View Website

Our Mr. Matsura is the story of Frank (Sakae) Matsura, the orphaned son of a samurai,
who emigrated to Washington State in 1901, eventually settling in remote Okanogan County.
There he embedded himself in a community of Native people and newly arrived settlers
and immigrants, including miners, ranchers, shopkeepers and cowboys.
In short order, he became the region’s leading photo-chronicler and, to many,
its most beloved citizen. Matsura not only made engaging photographs of people,
events and landscapes, but he also revealed facets of himself through scores
of unusual self-portraits. Upon his untimely death at the age of 39,
he was mourned in the largest funeral anyone in the area had seen to that date.
Through his lens, Frank Matsura offered up remarkable retellings of life in
the American West and gave people new ways of thinking about themselves.
A century later, the people of the county and the Colville Confederated Tribes
still have pride and a sense of connection to the work he created.

Five years in the making, Our Mr. Matsura includes the thoughts and family
memories of a wide array of people from the Colville Confederated Tribes and
the small Washington communities of Okanogan, Omak, Conconully, and Brewster,
as well as extended family members in Japan and experts from around the world.
The film not only celebrates the life of this amazing immigrant photographer,
but also the lives of the people who have helped uphold his memory
in the century since his death.

Produced and directed by Beth Harrington; co-produced by Hatsumi Asaka and Nora Collie
97 minutes
Join us after the film for a discussion and Q&A with writer/director Beth Harrington.   
Free!