One in everything 30 children born in Japan has at least one parent that is not Japanese. Having grown up in a multicultural country like The Netherlands this number doesn’t seem significant at first. But when you consider that Japan is a largely homogenous society where foreigners tend to stand out, this puts that number in a different light.

These kids, simply referred to as ハーフ (hafu, the Japanese way to pronounce the English word half). Hafu’s stand out nearly as much as foreigners, but are in fact full and worthy members of society that work, study, love and live in Japan and speak Japanese just like their peers that happen to have two Japanese parents.

The film Hafu explores the lives of some of these people (some of whom I am lucky enough to count amongst my friends). Being the foreign parent of a hafu myself, I hope to get some insight in some of the personal challenges Hugo might find himself in.

At the moment the film is in the final stage of production and is due to be released some time during 2012. I am looking forward to seeing what must be a beautiful piece of art.