East Side Sushi

Plot

Juana is a single mother who can slice and dice with speed and precision. Quitting her job tending a fruit cart, she is hired as a sous chef at a Japanese restaurant, where, on her own time, she starts to develop signature sushi dishes. She asks to become a Sushi chef, but the owner turns her down because she is a woman and not Japanese. She quits, but is accepted to compete on television in a sushi making contest. She comes in second, but later returns to the restaurant as a sushi chef.

Cast

Production

Director Anthony Lucero was primarily known for his documentaries and special effects work when he began writing a screenplay about a restaurant dishwasher, Juan, who yearned to be a French chef. In time, the central cuisine became Japanese, and after eight months of research, Lucero realized he had never seen a woman sushi chef. He tossed his 30 page script, Juan became Juana, and sexism, along with national origin, became thematic layers of the story. "What is authentic food?", Lucero asked rhetorically in an interview. "Is it where you’re from? Is it your sex? To make Thai food, do you need to be from Thailand, or is that something that’s learned?...Can you put your own spin on it. Can somebody from Poland make good Mexican food? Is it learned, or is it in their blood? I like people thinking about that.

Lucero shot the film, his feature debut, in Oakland, casting in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. He first thought Torres might have been too young for the part, but her acting skills won out. She gained about 15 pounds for the role. Filming took place at Coach Sushi on Oakland's Grand Avenue, the kitchen at the former location of B-Dama on Piedmont Avenue, and the stockroom at Mijori Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar. To save production costs, Locero first thought his actors might learn the craft of sushi making from either YouTube videos or local chefs. Ultimately, he persuaded Andy Matsuda of the Torrrance-based Sushi Chef Institute to instruct the cast for free. They trained for two weeks then performed under the occasional supervision of the chefs whose restaurants were used for the filming locations.

Reception

The movie won nine film festival awards and was nominated for two more. The film did not perform well at box office however, making just $220,000 against what is said to be a low budget. The movie has a score of 94% at Rotten Tomatoes.