In Akio Fujimoto’s ‘Lost Land,’ Rohingyan voices are finally being heard

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Kambole Campbell: What first inspired you to make Lost Land?
Akio Fujimoto: This is my third film, but I was planning on making a film about Rohingyans for my first film, actually.

It was over 10 years ago, but it's a taboo in Myanmar to talk about them, and to speak Rohingyan. You could get caught in Myanmar, and so I changed the subject to the stories for my first film (2017's Passage of Life) and second film (2020's Along the Sea). But it has always been a big regret to me to not be able to make a film about Rohingyans. I've seen genocides and people being persecuted during that time. So I felt that I had to make a film somehow. And I was based in Myanmar, so I've seen and heard a lot of those stories up close.

KC: Given that you weren't able to make this film before, what changed that allowed you to make it now?
AF: The social situation hasn't really changed. In that 10 years' time, the Rohingyans were still being persecuted. But I felt that after all this time, I could not ignore the topic anymore. After the second film—I think it was after the pandemic—I had two choices when making the third film. One was going towards a more commercial film, a Japanese commercial film, because I had won a lot of awards for my second film. And the other was making this one. I was really torn, but I decided to make Lost Land.

And one of the reasons that I could make it is because after the military coup in Myanmar (in 2021), I left and haven't gone back since. So being outside of Myanmar, it was easier for me to make a film about these people.

KC: With your other two films, Passage of Life and Along the Sea, since those were also about refugee communities, I wondered how your experience of making those films affected Lost Land.
AF: I've made this third film with the people that I've met along the way in the first and second. In that way, I think there are more and more people that are helping me make the film. So in that sense, I'm glad that I chose this topic for my third film, because if I did it for the first, I wouldn't have gotten so much support.

KC: How did you find it consulting with Rohingya people? What was it like translating their stories to the film?
AF: I did about a year of research where I was hearing stories from Rohingya people, especially with regards to the boat trip. They take different routes, but there are a lot of common elements, many patterns to every story. So I put them together, and put them in this film. But the last scene, I was thinking as I was shooting. 

KC: So the ending was more reactive to the atmosphere on the shoot?
AF: Yeah, about midway through the shooting, I changed the ending. There were several scenes that I completely changed from the script during the shoot.

KC: What led to those decisions?
AF: One big reason is that those two kids and the other reunion people, they're not professional actors, they're amateur actors. So there are some things in the script that they can do, and some they cannot do. So I had to adjust the plot along the way, and sometimes I would think, "Oh, maybe he's capable of doing more than I would give him." But also a lot of people who were in the film have actually taken this journey. So they would give me advice during this shoot. It's like, "No, we don't do that, we didn't do that." Things like scenes of when they were crossing the border, ripping the fence—these kinds of moments—they would give me advice on the details.

KC: Were there any more corrections you made during shooting?
AF: There are two smaller scenes which had some changes. One is when they get on the boat and depart. This was told by a Bangladeshi broker that was actually on set. They do a really strict body check on the beach before they get on the boat. So I added that into the script. The second one is when (the refugees) were put into a cage (in Thailand) and they had to pay more money, when writing I had heard before that nobody really gets killed in these situations, but one of the actors said his friend was actually killed in these circumstances.

KC: Considering that you're not working with professional actors, I did find it interesting that this film almost approaches the subject like a documentary, visually. Did it feel that way when you were filming?
AF: I didn't start out with the intent to make it feel like a documentary. It sort of just turned out that way. But I feel that the film has to be persuasive, and for that, it had to feel real. It had to be authentic.

KC: What keeps bringing you back to that subject of refugee communities in South and Southeast Asia?
AF: The fact that I'm married to a foreigner might have a little bit of an effect on the films that I made before coming to Tokyo. There's no real reason (for returning to this subject) so much as it is just going with the flow. It doesn't really matter what I think, but how others are accepting it. So if they are agreeing with what I'm saying, if they're saying that they're supporting me, I feel comfortable in that relationship. Maybe that makes me go back to those themes.

KC: Regarding going with the flow. I imagine that's quite handy when you're dealing with a cast of non professional actors and child actors as well.
AF: [Laughs] Yeah, maybe. So when I'm shooting, I don't say "cut," but that's because I don't actually understand exactly what (the actors) are saying. I mean, there's the written dialogue, but I don’t know exactly what they're saying. I find out later in editing! So, at the shoot, I'm like, "Maybe, yeah, that was probably okay."

KC: This is being said to be the first Rohingya language film. How do you feel about that?
AF: So the Rohingyan people (which I know), they're not so much excited about having a Rohingyan film out there so much as they are looking forward to their language being kept in a film for people to see. They don't have a written language. So I wasn't able to put their language, their dialogue into a script directly, it was always communicated verbally. That's why they're more, I think, happy about their voices being depicted in the film. There were a lot of films that depict the Rohingyans. It could be a documentary or a fiction, but if it's fiction, the actors are not really Rohingyan. So this is the first film that actually has Rohingyans in the film acting out their roles. And for this film to be shown in different countries and different festivals really means a lot to me. I really want it screened as much as possible.