Wait what? Is it automatically ok if the skewed / whitewashed role is written into the script? You do know that this kind of skew doesn't come about by the kkk kidnapping black actors at gunpoint in the middle of filming and replacing them with white ones?

If a Japanese director were to make a movie about the civil war, but chose to make it about a Japanese fighter who comes to the US, becomes the most kickass soldier of the Union, makes personal friends with Lincoln, and convinces him to stay the course on emancipation... that would be pretty weird, even if the argument went that this was the only way a Japanese audience could identify with this obscure historic time.

"Nobody Knows is Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu's fourth fiction feature. The film is inspired by a real event known as the “Affair of the Four Abandoned Children of Nishi-Sugamo” that took place 16 years ago, in 1988. Born to different fathers, the abandoned children never went to school and didn't legally exist, their births were never declared. Abandoned by their mother, they lived on their own for six months.

Kore-eda Hirokazu shows the “richness” of their life as seen from inside. The four children do their best to survive on their own: they devise and follow their own set of rules for their cocooned universe, based on their innocent longing for their mother. The film also shows their wary fascination towards the outside world, their anxiety over their increasingly desperate situation, their inarticulate cries, their kindness to each other, and their determination to survive on their wits and courage."

this is a short film by a japanese director, yoshimasa ishibashi.
the title of this piece is called "utau 6 nin no onna", which means "six women, who sing".