#130/Architecture + Design Film Festival #2: Alysa Nahmias + Akira Boch

Alysa Nahmias is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of the Los Angeles-based production company Ajna Films. Her directorial debut feature, Unfinished Spaces, co-directed with Benjamin Murray, won a 2012 Spirit Award, numerous festival prizes, and is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  In The New Bauhaus, the film's narrative weaves original interviews with archival footage, voiceover, and stylized filming of documents and artwork. The result is a new perspective view of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a man who was ahead of his time creating a philosophy of art and design education that has captured imaginations for nearly a century.  Akira Boch is an award-winning filmmaker and Director of the Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. He has made over 50 short films, documentaries, and music videos.  His latest film, Masters of Modern Design: The Art of the Japanese American Experience explores five second generation Japanese American artists—Ruth Asawa, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, Gyo Obata, and S. Neil Fujita—following the ways in which their US internment camp experiences impacted their lives, influenced their art, and sent them on trajectories that eventually led to their changing the face of American culture with their immense talents.