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Matthew Hashiguchi's grandmother Eva prepares a traditional Japanese feast.

(Matthew Hashiguchi)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi's "Good Luck Soup" was a buzz film at the 40th Cleveland International Film Festival in 2016. The documentary about growing up Japanese-American in Cleveland generated long lines, positive feedback and much discussion about how diverse this city that prides itself on diversity really is.

Tonight, the world beyond Cleveland will get to see the Cleveland native's documentary. "Good Luck Soup" will play at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 9 on the PBS World Channel, 25.3, on the "America ReFramed" series.

"This feels a little different than the festival screenings. I guess with those, there's more anxiety because I'm having to face people in person and in a public setting," says Hashiguchi, an assistant professor of Multimedia Film & Production at Georgia Southern University. "This doesn't require me to see any physical reactions, or answer any questions in public, so I don't have as much anxiety, at least right now."

The film was cut down from a 72-minute festival version, to a 56-minute version for PBS.

"I had to remove and condense a few scenes and some interviews," says Hashiguchi. "I also re-wrote some of the voice-overs to insert more of my own point of view, which helped stream the story together a little more. I also had new music scored, and inserted some new scenes and moments."

The PBS broadcast came about through the Center for Asian American Media.

"In early 2016, I was awarded a Doc Fund Award from the Center for Asian American Media to prepare the film for a national television broadcast," says Hashiguchi. "I worked closely with CAAM producers to make the film as strong as possible, and they then presented the film to 'America ReFramed 'and World Channel producers for consideration. Luckily, they chose the film! "

Here's a look at The Plain Dealer's 2016 review:

CLEVELAND, Ohio - "Cleveland is a complicated city ... in many ways segregated" says a resident in the documentary "Good Luck Soup," about the Japanese-American experience. "Being Japanese my family did not have a community to live with."

Instead, filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi grew up with his Japanese-American father and Italian-American mother in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood on the west side. He and his brother experienced more than a little prejudice, he says.

But nothing like the experience his grandmother Eva, born in California, had when she was interned with her family in a camp near Fresno during World War II, at age 16. "It took two-and-half-years of my life, I never got to college," she says.

Eva, 88, is the moral center of the film, a strong and cheerful woman who moved to Cleveland after her family was released because "California locked us up."

Matthew Hashiguchi begins his personal-film journey by looking at his grandmother's experience, then the more subtle racism his father and even he and his brother and cousins have experienced. It's an uncommon perspective on how open-minded proudly diverse Cleveland has really been over the years, especially his father and aunt's tales of being bullied at school in Little Italy.

"Good Luck Soup" is not a particularly artful film. It's a straightforward documentary with multiple in-person interviews intermixed with old family films. But moments such as when Hashiguchi's grandmother and friends sing "God Bless America" while archival footage of Japanese-Americans in barren internment camps screens are powerful.

As are scenes in which Eva and her grandchildren proudly carry on their Japanese dance and culinary traditions, such as their New Year's "Good Luck Soup."