General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Lost Land

Lost Land (Japanese title: LOST LAND／ロストランド; also known as Hara Watan) is a 2025 drama film directed, written, and edited by the Japanese filmmaker Akio Fujimoto, and the first-ever Rohingya-language fiction feature¹^•². It follows two young Rohingya siblings, Somira and her brother Shafi, who leave a refugee camp in Bangladesh on a perilous journey to reach relatives in Malaysia³. The film premiered in the Orizzonti competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2025, where it won the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize⁴^•⁵.

Key fact	Detail
Director, writer, editor	Akio Fujimoto⁶
Language	Rohingya; the first-ever Rohingya-language fiction feature¹
Runtime and countries	99 minutes; Japan, France, Malaysia, Germany⁶
World premiere	Venice Film Festival, Orizzonti competition, September 1, 2025⁴
Principal award	Orizzonti Special Jury Prize, Venice 2025⁵
Cast	Shomira Rias Uddin and Muhammad Shofik Rias Uddin, non-professional actors from the Rohingya community⁶^•⁷
Producer	Kazutaka Watanabe⁶

Spoilers

Story

Hoping to be reunited with their family, who are scattered, four-year-old Shafi and nine-year-old Somira, his sister, depart from a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh and set out on a dangerous voyage toward Malaysia.³ According to the Hiroshima International Film Festival synopsis, the siblings, unable to obtain passports, are led by smugglers onto a fishing boat, and face the forces of nature and the threat of human trafficking as they press on⁸. The Sydney Film Festival adds that what begins as a journey by boat becomes far scarier when the children are separated from their group and left to navigate unfamiliar terrain with only each other to rely on⁷. According to the FCCJ's Film Committee, the film faces the harsh truths of being stateless, such as trafficking in humans, compulsory displacement, and the insecure life of a group refused citizenship, all while keeping the delicate marvel of how a child sees the world¹.

Production and method

Docudrama approach. Although made as a docudrama and not a documentary, the film blends acted scenes and real life in a natural way, basing its narrative on what happened to over 200 Rohingya who took part in making it¹. It was made with a largely non-professional cast, and the two lead actors are themselves from the Rohingya community⁷^•⁶. Fujimoto wrote the script, and the resulting film feels like an observational documentary: most dialogue was improvised, and there is neither narration nor music. Yoshio Kitagawa, the cinematographer, who also worked on Evil Does Not Exist, shoots with a handheld camera, lending a you-are-there quality, most notably during the nighttime sequences⁹. The score credit belongs to the Swiss cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger⁶.

The production is a co-production among E.x.N K.K., Dongyu, KinemaTowards, Panorama Films, Elom Initiatives, Cinemata, Cineric Creative, and Scarlet Visions, with E.x.N handling planning and production⁶^•⁸. Beijing-based sales agent Rediance boarded the film for world sales ahead of its Venice premiere¹⁰.

Background and the director

Akio Fujimoto (藤元明緒) is a Japanese filmmaker born in Osaka in 1988 who trained in film at the city's Visual Arts Academy⁶. His debut feature, Passage of Life (2017), a Japan-Myanmar co-production about a Burmese family in Japan, won the Best Feature and Spirit of Asia Best Director awards in the Asian Future section of the Tokyo International Film Festival, and his second feature, Along the Sea (2020), about Vietnamese workers in Japan, was presented at the San Sebastián Film Festival⁶. All three of his features center on Southeast Asian protagonists and migration⁹.

Fujimoto began the Lost Land project in 2023¹¹. In an interview with Nippon.com he connected the film to his own conscience: he recalled that when the Rohingya were being slaughtered in 2017 he had said nothing, and that he felt he had to break out of his own double standards before making the film¹¹.

The film's subject has a documented real-world basis. Despite having lived in Myanmar for generations, more than a million Rohingya were compelled to escape the country, the majority seeking refuge in nearby Bangladesh, following a 2017 crackdown by the nation's military leadership.⁹ The Rohingya are often considered the world's most persecuted ethnic group¹.

Release and reception

After the Venice premiere, the film screened at festivals including the Tokyo International Film Festival (Nippon Cinema Now section, October 30, 2025), the Bangkok International Film Festival, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival⁴^•¹². On December 18, 2025, Japanese distributor Kino Films announced that the film had won the top award at the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival and had by then accumulated 10 awards at international festivals¹³. In addition to the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize, the Japanese Film Database records a NETPAC special commendation for Best Asian Film and the Bisato d'Oro (Golden Eel) Award for Best Director at Venice 2025¹².

Critics responded warmly. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer of 7 reviews, with reviewers including Kambole Campbell of IndieWire (B+), who wrote that the film's tragedies come from compassion rather than cynicism, and Amber Wilkinson of Eye for Film (4.5/5), who praised the child protagonists for conveying the uncertainty felt by youngsters forced into dangerous odysseys³. Mark Schilling of The Japan Times compared it to Slumdog Millionaire but called Lost Land a quieter, gentler film³. Boyd van Hoeij of Screen International, while positive on the film's intentions, noted that Fujimoto struggles at points to find a consistent tone that accommodates the harsh realities while keeping his young protagonists out of direct harm's way³.

The film received its Japanese theatrical release on April 24, 2026, distributed by Kino Films¹⁴.

Not to be confused with

Lost Land (2025) shares its release year with In the Lost Lands, a fantasy action film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, adapted from a George R. R. Martin short story¹⁵. The two films are unrelated.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2025 › Coming-of-age and family drama films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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