Film Screening: Our Mr. Matsura and post-screening conversation with Beth Harrington & Michael Holloman

Reception: 5-6 p.m.
Film: 6 p.m.
Post-conversation and Q&A: 7:45-8:30 p.m.

Join the Clyfford Still Museum for a special offsite screening of Our Mr. Matsura, a feature documentary film by award-winning filmmaker Beth Harrington, followed by a post-screening conversation with Harrington and Michael Holloman, Colville Confederated Tribes Curatorial Consultant and co-organizer of “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi'”.

Our Mr. Matsura tells the story of Frank Matsura, a Japanese photographer who settled in rural Washington in the early 1900s and became a deeply embedded figure in the Okanogan Valley community—home to members of the Colville Confederated Tribes. Matsura’s portraits and self-portraits capture the people of the region with warmth, imagination, and humor, offering a striking counter-narrative to dominant representations of the American West.

His work invites reflection on themes of representation, gender, and belonging in a borderland region shaped by cultural exchange and transformation. More than a century later, his photographs continue to resonate with the communities he so intimately documented.

Presented in connection with the exhibition “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi,'” this program offers a complementary lens through which to explore the history, identity, and lived experiences of the Colville Confederated Tribes.

Admission is $15 for the public, $10 for members, and free for accompanied youth 17 & under. Registration is required. This program takes place at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80206.
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Beth Harrington is an independent producer, director, and writer, born in Boston and transplanted to the Pacific Northwest. Her work explores American history, music, and culture. Harrington’s Welcome to the Club – The Women of Rockabilly, a documentary about the pioneering women of rock and roll, was honored with a 2003 Grammy nomination. This and other work reflect a long-standing love of music. She’s been a singer and sometimes guitarist, most noted for her years as a member of Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers on Sire Records. In 2015, her film The Winding Stream – The Carters, the Cashes and the Course of Country Music premiered at South by Southwest, later appearing in over 30 film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Harrington has worked with public television stations WGBH in Boston and OPB in Portland, producing, researching, and developing shows for both national and local air on series such as NOVA, Frontline, History Detectives, and others. Her film, Fort Vancouver, and her piece Once Upon a Time in the Northwest – The Music of Federale have both received Northwest Emmy Awards. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Syracuse University and a master’s degree in American Studies from UMass Boston.

bethharrington.com
ourmrmatsura.com
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Michael Holloman, parent, artist, curator, and fine arts professor, is an enrolled member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Native American art history and the studio arts at Washington State University while maintaining duties as the college’s coordinator for Native Arts, Outreach and Education. His scholarship addresses the historic issues and visual record of Plateau settler colonialism and Native adaptation and self-assertion—regarding Clyfford Still, Holloman stresses the aesthetic dimension of his work as being infused with a spiritual power that sustains familial and communal memory while offering inspiration for a new generation.