Frank Matsura came from a samurai family; Vancouver filmmaker’s ‘Our Mr. Matsura’ explores how he ended up in WA

‘Mr. Matsura has done it again.”

That’s what Colville tribal elder Randy Lewis said about local legend Frank Matsura earlier this year when a film screening about the photographer’s life brought together hundreds of Northeastern Washington residents.

Old-time townies, farmers, ranchers and tribal members kept saying, “We’re never together, but look at us sitting here all together,” Vancouver documentarian Beth Harrington recounted .

Photographer Frank Matsura, the unlikeliest of rural community builders, continues to play that role over a century after his death in 1913. Harrington’s new documentary, “Our Mr. Matsura,” screens at Kiggins Theatre Sept. 28, when she and a panel of experts will be on hand to discuss the film and the era of Washington history it explores.

Even after wo