Sometimes the best way to come to grips with an issue is to see it through the eyes of a child. Akio Fujimoto¡¯s ¡°Lost Land¡± frames the plight of the Rohingya people ¡ª a stateless, predominantly Muslim ethnic group who¡¯ve suffered decades of persecution ¡ª through the experiences of a pair of children on a treacherous journey from Bangladesh to Malaysia.
Shafi, 5, and his 9-year-old sister, Somira, are too young to understand the reasons why they have to embark on the trip, leaving behind the relative safety of a refugee camp and braving border crossings and unscrupulous human traffickers. They don¡¯t know about the deadly military crackdown in 2017 that forced hundreds of thousands of their kin to flee from Myanmar¡¯s Rakhine State.
¡°The audience, in a sense, also don¡¯t know about the history or background of the Rohingya,¡± says Fujimoto, 38, speaking at a publicist¡¯s office in central Tokyo. His own son, who¡¯s just about to start elementary school, plays quietly with one of the staff while we talk.
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