ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Film Club: Hafu
Date
Wednesday 2 November 2022
Time
6.30pm (GMT)
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Booking Details
Free - Booking essential
Priority for Japan Society Members
Please remember to watch the film in advance. Please remember to watch the film in advance. Hafu is available to watch on Amazon UK and Vimeo on demand.
The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend and do not have a membership subscription as an individual or through your employer, please consider making a donation. You can find details of membership and how to join the Japan Society community here.
Do you love Japanese film classics, anime or contemporary cinema stories? Do you miss Japan and want to see it at least on screen? Would you like to learn and discuss about Japanese culture and society? The Japan Society Film Club is an online space to chat about films and Japan in an informal atmosphere.
Join us on 2 November for our Film Club to discuss Hafu directed by Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Takagi.
Hafu（ハーフ, 2013）is a documentary exploring the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan. With an ever-increasing movement of people between places in this transnational age, there is a mounting number of mixed-race people in Japan, some visible others not. The film follows the lives of five “hafus”–the Japanese term for people who are half-Japanese–as they explore what it means to be multiracial and multicultural in a nation that once proudly proclaimed itself as the mono-ethnic nation. For some of these hafus Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and others are caught somewhere between two different worlds.
Megumi Nishikura is producer and director passionate about addressing our global and social issues through documentary storytelling. She spent five years working for the United Nations, producing documentaries on environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity. Believing in the healing power of storytelling, Megumi has captured stories of 9/11 survivors and those impacted by the 2011 Tsunami in northeastern Japan. Her 2013 award-winning independent feature film, Hafu—the mixed-race experience in Japan, was funded by CAAM and the Japan Foundation, and screened theatrically throughout Japan and aired in the United States on PBS. In 2015, she produced Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Brides which won numerous short documentary awards and aired globally on BBC World News. Her most recent short film Minidoka for Blue Chalk Media was published by TIME magazine. She is currently producing her second feature film Sono about the untold story of the first Asian American ballerina.
Lara Perez Takagi was born in Tokyo, and raised in the US, Canada, Spain and Australia. Her father is Spanish and her mother is Japanese. Having graduated in Audiovisual Communications in Madrid in 2005, she returned to Tokyo on a Government Scholarship to direct her first student film "Madrid X Tokyo" in which she explored her dual identity. The film was screened at the opening week of the Cervantes Institute in Tokyo in 2009. The positive response from touring the film at other institutions incited her motivation towards filming her next big project "Hafu" alongside a talented group of mixed-race Japanese women. In the more recent years Lara has been working in the visual effects and animation industry, focusing on the production pipeline of Hollywood blockbuster movies. Today she is working from home with her husband while bringing up her 2 young children in a multicultural household.
Japan Society Film Clubs take place on the first Wednesday of the month. We recommend a film to watch in advance and meet online to discuss. Films are often available online for free, to rent or with subscription, on DVD/Blu Ray or on BFI player. The event is open to all and we encourage participants to freely express their opinions and feelings about the films.
If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.
Booking Info
Please remember to watch the film in advance. Hafu is available to watch on Amazon UK and Vimeo on demand.
- You should receive an automated email from the Japan Society to let you know that your booking request has been registered. Please note that your booking is pending while we check your details and you will receive a further email once your booking is confirmed.
- For online events, we will send you the zoom links and details to attend the event closer to the date.
- If you don't receive any confirmation emails or links, please check your spam folder or email events@japansociety.org.uk.