I Am the Art NOBUO KUBOTA
- Annette Mangaard
Western Front and Powell Street Festival Society is pleased to present a screening of Annette Mangaard’s documentary I Am the Art NOBUO KUBOTA (2025) at The Cinematheque.
I Am the Art is a bold, yet intimate portrait of multidisciplinary artist Nobuo Kubota, a Japanese Canadian trailblazer whose creative practice never stopped evolving. From early sculpture and painting to sound poetry, installation, film, avant-garde jazz, and live performance, Kubota spent a lifetime breaking rules and fusing East and West, silence and sound, memory and experiment.
But the documentary is also a love story. While Kubota pushes his body and voice into uncharted territory, he is also caring for his 96-year-old wife, Lee, who lives with advanced Alzheimer’s. Rare archival footage of his work with the Canadian Creative Music Collective (CCMC) and the Artists Jazz Band, along with haunting images from WWII internment camps, show how resilience and imagination shaped his life and art.
Kubota passed away on September 30, 2025, after viewing and approving of the film.
The screening will conclude with a conversation between filmmaker and former student of Kubota’s, Annette Mangaard, and Vancouver-based artist Cindy Mochizuki.
About the Artists & Speaker
Nobuo Kubota was a multimedia artist born in Vancouver, Canada. Initially trained as an architect, Kubota’s practice spanned sculpture, painting, music, installation, film, and performance. An early member of the Artists Jazz Band and the CCMC (Canadian Creative Music Collective), he became known for his merging of extended vocal techniques, sound poetry, mime, and electronics. Kubota’s work reflected a unique fusion of East and West, with influences spanning Japanese art history and spirituality, jazz and improvisation, and experimental avant-garde practices. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
Annette Mangaard is a Danish-born Canadian media artist and filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. Over the past decade, her work as an independent documentary filmmaker has largely centered on artists, resulting in numerous films devoted to artistic practice. Her films include I Am The Art NOBUO KUBOTA (2025), Suzy Lake: Playing With Time (2014), General Idea: Art, AIDS and the fin de siècle (2008), and Kinngait: Riding Light into the World (2010). She holds an Interdisciplinary Masters in Art, Media, and Design from OCAD University.
Cindy Mochizuki is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada who creates multi-media installations, audio fiction, performances, animations, drawings, and community-engaged projects. Her artistic process is often research-based and site-specific, engaging historical memory, displacement, and the invisible. A large body of Mochizuki’s work has investigated narratives and memories within the archive of familial architecture—including childhood spaces, home videos, photography, and oral histories—to revisit the histories of displacement and migration of family members both within Canada and Japan.
Accessibility
The Cinematheque’s theatre is wheelchair accessible and has four wheelchair spots with adjacent companion seats. If you have a mobility impairment and require assistance in attending a screening, we are happy to provide your companion with a complimentary ticket. You can notify us in advance via phone +1 (604) 688-8202 or email info@thecinematheque.ca, or speak to someone at our box office when you arrive. Further details about accessibility at The Cinematheque can be found here.
Acknowledgements
Presented in partnership with Powell Street Festival Society and The Cinematheque.
Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.