A century after his death, a little-known rural Washington photographer is still shaping how a community sees itself. A documentary by Vancouver filmmaker Beth Harrington is bringing that story back into focus and will soon screen locally in Ridgefield.
“Our Mr. Matsura,” which debuted in Okanogan County in April 2025, will screen locally on May 21 at the Old Liberty Theater as part of the Clark County Historical Museum’s History on Tap series. The event pairs the film with a discussion led by Harrington for audiences to engage directly with both the filmmaker.
A filmmaker drawn to the overlooked
Harrington, a longtime Vancouver resident, has spent decades telling stories that might otherwise go unheard. Her career spans more than 45 years and includes Emmy-winning work for Oregon Public Broadcasting and a Grammy nomination for her documentary “Welcome to the Club,” about women in rockabilly music.
Her interest in Frank Matsura began years ago at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, where a handful of his photographs stood out among more conventional work from the early 1900s.
“As soon as I saw the photos, I thought ‘these are unusual,’” she said. “They just stood out to me.”
Matsura’s images, particularly of Native American communities in the Okanogan region, differed sharply from the posed, costumed and often manipulated portraits typical of the time. Instead, his work captured people as they were, often smiling, interacting and at ease.
“When I see these photos, I feel like I'm looking at people representing themselves as authentically as you can,” she said.
That authenticity, paired with Harrington’s long-standing interest in Matsura’s story, set the foundation for a project that would take roughly five years to complete.
“I like the underdog,” Harrington said. “I always want to tell the underdog story.”
A life pieced together through images
Frank Matsura’s story begins in Japan during the upheaval of the Meiji era. Born in 1873 to a samurai family, he was orphaned young and raised in a Christian household during a time of rapid cultural change.
At some point in his late teens or early adulthood, Matsura left Japan for the United States, arriving in Seattle before eventually making his way to Okanogan County. Why he left remains unclear.
“We're still a little incredulous,” Harrington said. “Like, why did he go there?”
In Okanogan, Matsura found a home working at a hotel, where he lived among the owner’s family and began developing his photography in the building’s basement. Over time, he opened his own studio and documented life across the region.
His work ranged from landscapes and commissioned portraits to experimental images that pushed the limits of early photography. Using a multiplying camera, he created sequences that resembled modern photo booths, sometimes telling short visual stories or playing with gender roles and humor, sometimes photobombing during a shoot. Many of the over 4,000 known photos in Matsura’s portfolio challenged what was seen as “usual” for early 1900s America, Harrington noted.
“He has men wearing women’s bonnets and women wearing men’s clothes,” Harrington said. “He has two women kissing. One is dressed as a man and the other is in her regular women’s clothes … It’s easy to try to put a 21st-century interpretation on these things, but the fact remains that these photos exist and he was doing some really interesting things.”
Beyond his artistry, small anecdotes reveal his personality. Matsura, fluent in English, would sometimes make light of the situation when confronted with prejudice.
“Some people made the bad mistake of thinking he didn't understand English, and they would talk to him in broken Pidgin English, and he would play along and talk back to them in broken Pidgin English,” Harrington said. “Apparently, a couple of hours later, the person would come back, Frank would talk to them in fluent English and they would feel stupid.”
In another instance not included in the film, Matsura served as a translator for Japanese men involved in a legal dispute involving a fight, helping them navigate the court system until they were exonerated.
His life in the region lasted just over a decade. In 1913, at age 39, Matsura died of tuberculosis. His funeral drew such a large crowd that it had to be moved to a larger venue, attended by Native residents, settlers and immigrants alike.
“His was the biggest funeral anyone had ever seen in the county,” Harrington said. “They had tried to have it in a church and the church was too small. They moved it to a big auditorium to accommodate all the people who wanted to be there.”
Building a film, reflecting a community
Harrington spent about five years bringing “Our Mr. Matsura” to life, supported primarily by two grants totaling about $700,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The production required extensive travel, including trips to Japan, where she worked with co-producer Hatsumi Asaka to connect with Matsura’s extended family and cultural history.
The process was slow and often challenging, shaped in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project involved filming and interviews in Tokyo and the City and County of Okanogan, as well as gathering photos, memories, and stories from descendants of those who knew Matsura.
When the film premiered in Okanogan County, the response reinforced the story’s central theme: Matsura’s lasting impact on the community.
“‘Look at us here. All in the same room,’” Harrington recalled one community member saying.
“I was just struck by how … he died 113 years ago this spring, but there are people in Okanogan, in the neighboring town of Omak, all of those people, so many of them, have stories,” she said. “So many of them know exactly who Frank Matsura is now.”
For Harrington, Matsura’s enduring connection highlights how he spent his limited time not only documenting a small community but shaping it, too.
“I also want to call attention to the fact that here's a guy who bridged communities. He was a guy who interacted with everybody and was beloved by everybody,” she said.
The sense of shared history extends beyond Matsura’s photography. Harrington points to the role of local historians and volunteers who preserve these stories. People like Barry George, a retired smoke-jumper who works for the Okanogan County Historical Society, were crucial for the production of the film.
“I kept trying to pay him and he said no,” Harrington recalled. “I’d (send) a phone call, a text or an email. ‘Hey, Barry, do we have a picture? Is this the right image? Can you identify these people?’ He (helped) as much as anyone in my crew… ”
In that way, she said, Matsura’s legacy lives on not only in his photographs but in those who continue the work of remembering his impact.
The Clark County Historical Museum will host the screening at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 21, at the Old Liberty Theater, 115 N. Main Ave. in Ridgefield. Doors open at 6 p.m. A discussion with Harrington will follow the film. Pre-registration is required.
Readers can learn more about the film at ourmrmatsura.com.
