My Small Land

Emma Kawawada's 2022 Japanese film follows Sarya, the daughter of a Kurdish family from Turkey. She arrived at five and counts Japan as her country; her family keeps its traditions and has found a balance between two worlds. Everything changes when the family's asylum claim is refused. The work permit is withdrawn, leaving the prefecture is forbidden and Sarya has to abandon her plan for university; the narrative shows this not as a moment of catastrophe but as rights lost one by one. It is Kawawada's first feature. The narrative takes the workings of the Japanese asylum system as its direct subject. Lina Arashi leads and is herself of Kurdish origin; real family members appear in the cast. Who it's for: those who like contemporary Japanese cinema and narratives about migration. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a story that reaches resolution; the film ends without fixing the situation.