‘Finding Her Beat,’ the centerpiece of the Minnesota Film Festival

“Finding Her Beat,” a film about a Japanese drum master and Korean adoptee who assembles the world’s best Taiko drummers in the middle of a frozen Minnesota winter, will be the centerpiece of this week’s Minnesota Film Festival.

Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett, two women who directed, produced, shot, and edited the film, shared about what it was like to make it and why it’s an important story. Mikkelson said she hopes audiences see a bigger picture.

“This is a testimony to powerful people on the margins who – instead of waiting to be invited to the party, they throw their own party,” she said.

Pickett says it’s an uplifting and inspiring story.

“Many people say that just makes them want to, you know, go bang a drum,” she said.

“Finding Her Beat” will screen at 7 p.m. Friday, March 31, in Zeitgeist’s Zinema 1. It will be followed by a drum performance in the atrium of Zeitgeist.