One of largest populations of Nikkei (Japanese born or living outside of Japan) is located in Brazil.

It's the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, and the Vancouver Asian Film Festival is celebrating the occasion with a free screening of Tizuka Yamasaki's 2005 film Gaijin—Ama Me Como Sou (Gaijin—Love Me As I Am).

Gaijin means foreigner in Japanese.

Admission is free, but you do have to purchase a $2 VAFF membership.

It will be screened at the Frederic Wood Theatre (6354 Crescent Road, UBC) on Sunday (November 23).

Here is a description of the film:

The pioneer Titoe arrived in Brazil aboard Kasato Maru Ship in 1908, wishing to return to her homeland with the money saved by working in the coffee farms. In 1935, holding her Brazilian-daughter, Shinobu, and little amount of money she saved, Titoe buys her first piece of land in Londrina City (North of Paraná State) and postpones her desire to go back to Japan. The Second World War and its consequences to Japan, put off Titoe’s promise to come back to Japan. Titoe’s grandchildren, Kazumi and Maria, were born in Londrina by the end of the 40’s, and then Titoe becomes a “batyan” (grandma). Maria marries Gabriel, a gaijin (foreigner), son of the Spanish farmer Ramon Salinas and the Italian immigrant Sofia. From this relationship two children were born, Yoko and Pedro. Gabriel’s job selling and buying lands are doing well until Fernando Collor de Mello’s (Brazilian President) confiscation plan (economic plan) in 1990, bankrupts him. Maria, Gabriel, Yoko and Pedro have to live with Batyan, in the house she built by herself. Having no other choices, Gabriel leaves Brazil and goes to Kobe, Hyogo province, as a dekassegui (temporary worker) like Shinobu did to recover the money she lost in Brazil. Maria, Shinobu, Batyan and Gina (Maria’s sister-in-law) have to reorganise life in Brazil. But after the earthquake in Kobe in 1995, when Gabriel was considered dead, Yoko and Maria decide to go to Japan to look for him. In Japan, Maria and Yoko face prejudices and challenges provided by cultural differences, and deal with the fear about the unknown. The promise of the old Titoe to return to Japan drives the lives of these four women generations: the ninety-years-old Batyan, her daughter Shinobu, a nisei (second Japanese generation), her granddaughter Maria, a sansei (third generation) and her great-granddaughter Yoko, a half-breed (Japanese/Spanish/Italian). Gaijin is a film about the Japanese descendants’ saga who try to find out their identities.