Fugetsu-Do

“We had to live the American Dream twice.”

In the three generations that the Kito Family has been running Fugetsu-Do, the store has been an anchor for the Little Tokyo neighborhood in LA. The ingredients of the brightly-colored pieces of mochi-gashi that line the shop’s wood-paneled cases include so much more than rice flour and sweet bean paste. Mixed inside are stories of joy and pain, tradition and racism, legacy and loss. In this intimate portrait of a sweet shop that has become a memory bank for the Japanese-American community, it’s clear that the stories that line its walls could not be more relevant in today’s America.

Directed and produced by Kaia Rose

About the filmmaker: Kaia Rose is a filmmaker dedicated to meaningful and curious storytelling who has worked extensively as a director, producer and editor. Her award-winning short documentary Fugetsu-Do, an intimate portrait of a 117-year-old Japanese sweet shop, is currently playing festivals around the world. Kaia is the creator and director of Climate Countdown, an award-winning web-series that maps out the ecology of climate solutions, and has written, filmed and edited hundreds of videos that promote climate consciousness and action. As a freelance filmmaker, she has created video content for such organizations as the United Nations, The Juilliard School, 350.org, Rachel’s Network, and the World Bank. She has also edited numerous independent short narrative and documentary films and was an editor and archive manager on the PBS documentary Power to Heal, exploring how Medicare helped desegregate American hospitals in the 1960s. Kaia is a graduate of the University of Bristol and currently the Multimedia Content Lead at Connect4Climate, World Bank Group.

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