INTRO

In a country divided, only together can they survive.

In the midst of calling "action" during the filming of Half Kenneth, I stood in the middle of the desert surrounded by a passionate crew of Japanese and Americans, and realized something compelling about this situation.

When I was eighteen, I left Tokyo to pursue my dream of becoming a film director in the United States. Though I was born and raised in Japan, I did not have the faintest idea of what a Japanese-American Internment camp was. Two years after my arrival, I worked on a short film called Day of Independence which is about the internment camps, directed by Chris Tashima. That was when I first learned these camps existed. I was more shamed than shocked at the fact that I didn't know the history of my ancestors: the history of Japanese immigrants.

Since then, I have researched and interviewed survivors of the camps. As a result, I found a parallel line between myself, having come to the United States to succeed, and Japanese immigrants two generations prior. I subsequently developed a story about two boys who embark on a journey to find home as I continued to search for a place I belong.

Half Kenneth is about two young brothers, half Caucasian and half Japanese, who escape from a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. Their destination is their home in San Pedro where their Caucasian mother lives. The film's heart lies in its family struggle, in the way that the older boy interacts with his brother, whose innocence teaches him about his responsibilities.

As my last project as a student, the film will demonstrate my abilities in narrative and visual storytelling. Additionally, I feel that this film articulates unique ideas and universal themes that explore issues that are important to me as a Japanese filmmaker in the United States. I realized on set that day that young passionate Japanese and Americans were working together to tell a story about mixed raced brothers in the Japanese-American internment camp only sixty years after the War. It was a testament to how far both our cultures had come.