She was 3 when she first stood in the spotlight — on the stage of Tokyo's National Noh Theater — as the apple of her father's eye.
More recently (all of 21 years later), she received acclaim at the International Film Festival in Miami for her documentary "Street Witness." Soraya Umewaka: gentle but strong, passionate yet focused, definitely someone to watch.
She has been back in Japan just a year, after a yearlong fellowship from Princeton University to document on camera the lives of youths in the favelas (slums) of Rio, Brazil.