Director: Zakir Hossain Raju
Producer: Piplu R khan
Category: Development
Country: Bangladesh
Logline:
A self-exploring Japanese-Bangladeshi girl trails her
mother’s journey while a Bengali man in Tokyo tries to be happy with his second
Japanese wife.
Synopsis:
This film intertwines two characters roaming in inter-Asian
contexts—in Tokyo, Dhaka, Shizuoka and beyond. Yurika (35), a Hafu, doing PhD
in Japan remembers how her late mother transformed from a Japanese girl to a
Bengali Housewife in 1970s-80s Bangladesh. By tracking her mother, Yurika also
reveals her challenges through her two marriages as well her single motherhood
in today’s Tokyo. Alongside Yurika, the film follows a Bangladeshi man, Rakib
aka Naoki Abe (55), also a resident of Tokyo for three decades. He married a
Japanese lady Tayeko in 1992, with whom he later got separated. Today he spends
family time with Hitomi, his second Japanese wife and two Hafu children—Rahid
and Reiyan. After facing some crisis, he is now struggling to start his new
business venture in Japan. Taking a close, intimate look at the lives of Yurika
and Rakib and their families, this film plans to portray their everyday
triumphs and tribulations to make us closer to the lived world of ‘global
citizens’
Director’s Statement:
I have been engaged in observing inter-Asian family for
around three decades. I always tried to locate Asia as a cultural space, where
lives reflect transnational intercultural relationships. That is why, I want to
make this new film to tell the stories of Yurika, her mother, Rakib and his
‘hafu’ children. I will candidly present the everyday events of these
inter-Asian citizens and children in today’s Tokyo. I got a chance to observe
these ‘protagonists’ in 2022 when I was serving at Waseda University. I wish to
position the two characters of this narrative: Yurika and Rakib as connected
through their own journeys which are based on their parental and marital
relationships to two different national spaces- Japan and Bangladesh. Creating
a diegetic world on screen in which we will see the protagonists to search and
suffer through their lives, I shall try to make us closer to the lived
realities of these two transcultural citizens in today’s rapidly globalizing
and commercializing world.
Budget
210000 USD
Contact Information
Email: Piplu@appleboxfilms.net