New documentary to spotlight pioneer Okanogan photographer Frank Matsura

Documentary filmmaker Beth Harrington

MIKE MALTAIS/WARD MEDIA

Francene Blythe-Lewis is the Executive Director of Vision Maker Media

COURTESY OF BARBARA SOULÉ

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OKANOGAN—Frank Matsura, the early 20th-century photographer who recorded many aspects of early county life, is the subject of a new documentary scheduled for a 2025 debut.

Members of the Okanogan County Historical Society, Okanogan County Tourism Council, and Okanogan Chamber of Commerce gathered at the 12 Tribes Casino on June 30 for a presentation by filmmaker Beth Harrington and Vision Maker Media Executive Director Francene Blythe-Lewis who spoke about the documentary, Our Mr. Matsura.

Harrington showed some slides taken during a recent trip to Japan to visit Matsura’s birthplace and interview his family descendants.

Boston-born Harrington majored in communications at Syracuse University and has been involved with documentary filmmaking for almost five decades. She gained valuable experience working with WGBH-TV, the flagship Public Television Station in Boston.

“I worked on their NOVA and Frontline series,” said Harrington. “I’ve been at it for a while.”

Harrington and her husband moved to the Northwest in 1996. Her interests included subjects related to culture, history, and art when she chanced upon a photographer she had never heard of before.

“I saw an Edward Curtis exhibit at the Washington State Historical Museum in Tacoma,” recalled Harrington. “Interspersed with it was work by Frank Matsura.”

Harrington was impressed with Matsura’s style.

“I thought, ‘Wait a minute…who is this guy’?” said Harrington. “His work was so different, so fresh, and he treated people in a different way than Curtis approached it.”

She had initiated the Matsura project when an acquaintance introduced her to Francene Blythe-Lewis about 10 years ago, thinking that the two would hit it off.

“And we did,” said Harrington. “Over the years, I’ve been talking to her and asking her what she thought of the project.”

Blythe-Lewis, Executive Director of Vision Maker Media, thought highly enough of the documentary to serve as associate producer.

Vision Maker Media's roots are in the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium (NAPBC), established in 1972 by a group that included Blythe-Lewis’s father, Frank Blythe.

The purpose of NAPBC was to help the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) serve Native American producers and public television with Native programs. The elder Blythe was then on the management team of KAET-TV, a University of Arizona PBS station. What emerged was NAPBC, with Frank Blythe as its first executive director. He remained so until 2006.

NAPBC became Vison Maker Media in 2013, and in 2020, Blythe-Lewis was named executive director. Blythe-Lewis brings management experience gained at the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of the American Indian, and other organizations.

Among its projects, Vision Maker funds emerging filmmakers through its Creative Shorts Fellowships, launched iNative Shorts for Kids on its YouTube channel and annually funds 10 long and short documentaries.

During his brief life of 39 years (1873-1913), he documented more than 1,800 early Okanogan region subjects. Much of his work survives in the archives at Washington State University and the Okanogan County Historical Society. He is buried in the Okanogan Cemetery.

Mike Maltais: 360-333-8483 or michael@ward.media