Jeff Adachi

Jeffrey Gordon Adachi (August 29, 1959 – February 22, 2019) was an American attorney, pension reform advocate, and politician who served as the Public Defender of San Francisco from 2003 to 2019.

Movie Credits

Adachi wrote, produced, and directed The Slanted Screen, a 2006 documentary film about stereotypical depictions of Asian males in American cinema. The Slanted Screen won top awards at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival and at the Berkeley Film Festival.

In 2009, he also directed You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story, about Jack Soo, a Japanese American actor (known for his role in Barney Miller) who took a Chinese name. The film won the best documentary film at the Accolade Film Festival, and was chosen to air on Comcast's on demand following its national PBS broadcast.

In 2016, he made the film America Needs a Racial Facial (initially entitled Racial Facial), an eight-minute history of racism in the U.S. Racial Facial won the best short documentary at the Hollywood Independent Documentary Film Festival awards in 2016 and earned a distribution deal by the Films for the Humanities and Sciences later that year.

Adachi's 2017 documentary Defender, co-directed with Jim Choi, won best documentary at the Independent Television Festival. The 70-minute piece followed a racially charged case tried by Adachi as well as a case handled by the office's fledgling immigration unit.

Films

• 2017 Defender (Documentary)
• 2016 America Needs a Racial Facial (Short)
• 2009 You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story (Documentary)
• 2006 The Slanted Screen (Documentary)