Film set in Oakland is on a roll
Anthony Lucero’s “East Side Sushi” made its 2014 world premiere at San Jose’s Cinequest film festival and ended up winning the best narrative audience award. And that was only the beginning. The film ended up becoming the darling of the film festival circuit, racking up awards both near — SF IndieFest, San Francisco Latino Film Festival, Napa Valley Film Festival, CAAMfest 2014 — and far — Black Hills Film Festival (South Dakota), Beloit International Film Festival (Wisconsin) and more.
“East Side Sushi” marks the feature writing-directing debut for Lucero, a San Francisco State University film department graduate who pours the money he makes as a visualeffects editor (“Iron Man,” “The Twilight Saga: Breaking
Dawn — Part 2”) into his own projects. The film spins the story of Juana (Diana Elizabeth Torres), a single mom living with her father (Rodrigo Duarte Clark), who takes a job in the kitchen of a sushi restaurant.
She has never eaten the Japanese delicacy, but soon discovers she has an affinity for it. Between her own initiative and lessons from chef Aki (Yutaka Takeuchi), Juana is soon experimenting with her own recipes and dreaming of her own place in the theater of the sushi bar. Standing in her way is a long-standing tradition that decrees that only Asians and men (especially men) can be sushi chefs.
Lucero’s heart belongs to the Bay Area, but for the last six months he’s been in Los Angeles. That’s where the filmmaker, who is in his early 40s, was on a recent Saturday when he took time from his afternoon to chat about his first feature.
Q: How did you arrive at this story of a Latina woman who aspires to be a sushi chef ?
A: I like having,, two completely different worlds collide. The early inspiration, I was just sitting in a little diner. I was watching this guy, he was Latino and he was washing dishes, and I was just wondering, “What does he aspire to be? I wonder what his story is.” … All it was was a writing exercise, and then I was eating sushi, and I thought, “Oh, maybe this guy wants to be a sushi chef. Maybe he works in a Japanese restaurant.” It started to evolve. I liked the cross-cultural aspect, a Latino wanting to become a sushi chef. After a half year or more of research into what it takes to become a sushi chef — I was interviewing sushi chefs and hanging out in their restaurants — it dawned on me that I’d never seen a woman do this job.
Q: You shot this in Oakland in neighborhoods rarely seen in movies.
A: I originally wanted to show way more of Oakland. ... You get in the editing room and you just start cutting and cutting and cutting. But originally I wanted to show more of the diversity in Oakland. ... I love Oakland, Oakland is my city, and I wanted to show it on a bigger scale. … I think it does come across. A lot of people tell me, “Oh my God, you made Oakland shine. It looks beautiful.” I love hearing that.
Q: When it came to casting, were you able to fill any of the roles with locals?
A: Everybody was local, except the two leads. Diana and Yutaka are both in L.A., but Rodrigo Duarte Clark, he plays the father, he’s in Oakland. … I found him because he was in a friend of mine’s film. He just had this great face. ... I did a read-through and I asked him to help. I asked him to read the screenplay, the part of Apa, for me, just as a test. I had no inkling of making a film. I didn’t have the money to do it. … He was so great, even when the screenplay was just in draft form. ... “Oh my God, I need to make this film, Rodrigo. I want you to play the dad.”
Q: Does it present any particular challenge filming in the Bay Area, as opposed to L.A. where there are so many things in place to facilitate filmmaking?
A: Oakland is a very easy city to shoot in, honestly. If you were to have a huge production in Oakland somewhere, the police wouldn’t care. They’d drive by, ‘Oh, they’re shooting a film.’ In L.A., someone would come up and ask for a permit. And I did have a permit to shoot in Oakland. ... The city is very open to having you shoot there. ... We started getting food from restaurants. People let us film in the restaurants for free. Coach Sushi was very open, and the owner of B-Dama said, “You can film in my restaurant for free.” I don’t know if you would necessarily find that in any other city. I don’t know if you would find that in L.A.
Q: What keeps you loyal to the Bay Area?
A: I have to say, honestly, it’s having my family in the Bay Area. They are part of the crew. If I were to make the film in L.A., I couldn’t call my brothers and sisters and my mom and say, ‘Can you make some enchiladas for the crew?’ ... I also have a lot of colleagues that I helped on their films, and so for “East Side Sushi,” I called back all those favors, “Can you help me with my film?”