Toru Kubota
Documentary Filmmaker
Born in 1996. While he was a bachelor student in political science, he documented the situation of the Rohingya internment camps in western Myanmar and created “Light up Rohingya” (2016), which solidified his decision to use his camera to give voice to the voiceless. Later, he collaborated with media companies such as the BBC, NHK World, and Al Jazeera. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Tokyo, he earned acclaim for co-directing the NHK program “Tokyo Ritornello (2020)” which shed light on the often overlooked and marginalized immigrant communities facing hardship in Japan.In In 2023, he co-founded the Docu Athan project with Yuki Kitazumi, an initiative dedicated to supporting journalists in Myanmar.
FILM
59 min. Aired on July 18, 2024 Director・Camera・Editor / Toru Kubota
Three years ago, a coup took place in Myanmar. The military's oppression claimed the lives of many citizens. Amid this turmoil, some fled to a border town in Thailand, taking up cameras as their weapon to fight back. Among them is a cameraman with a prosthetic leg who ventures to the frontlines of conflict to show the world the reality of their homeland. There's also a former Myanmar soldier broadcasting programs calling on his former comrades to surrender. This is a record of resistance through visual storytelling, captured by documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota, who was once detained by Myanmar authorities.
11 min. Yahoo! News Expert
Published on August 10, 2023
Director・Camera・Editor/ Toru Kubota
FILM
59 min. Aired on July 18, 2024 Director・Camera・Editor / Toru Kubota
A record of listening to the "little voices" (Ritornello) of those living on the fringes of society in Tokyo during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the state of emergency to autumn. Among them are individuals who lost their jobs and were evicted from internet cafes, left with nowhere to go. Members of support groups remark, "Poverty is the result of an unkind society." In Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho, labeled the "nightlife district," a rapper expresses anger, "When times were good, they came here for women, and now they discard us during COVID." A sex worker, unable to take a break even during the pandemic, shares her struggle: "I'm supporting my education as a single mother. I wish people would stop looking at me through tinted lenses." Meanwhile, a Kurdish asylum seeker on "provisional release" murmurs, "We are living in a never-ending lockdown."
-Myanmar and Democracy-
When I first visited Myanmar in 2015, people were enthusiastic about the future that democracy would bring. Within the country, which seemed to be covered in the light of hope, there were also shadows. At that time, I visited the "internment camps" of the Rohingya and captured footage of their conditions, which has become a valuable record that still holds true today. The existence of the Buddhist group "Ma Ba Tha," which collaborates with the military to incite hatred against Muslims. The challenge of punk musicians seeking to foster exchanges with ethnic minorities through music. The journey of an activist, who is a Buddhist Burmese, to Bangladesh to learn about the situation of the Rohingya. I became deeply involved with the people living in a country where shadows and light coexist. After the coup in February 2021, Myanmar once again fell under the shadow as a whole.
-Asylum Seekers-
At the beginning of the pandemic, people around the world shared the common experience of having their freedom to some extent taken away. The term "lockdown" has become nostalgic, but at that time, we certainly went through it. Back then, I thought about people whose freedom was perpetually taken away. Foreigners detained in immigration centers in Japan and those who was provisionally released, but restricted their freedom of movement. Capturing their situations on film would slightly, but certainly, resonate with people's hearts more than before. After filming "Endless Lockdown" with Ali, a Kurdish man, I was led to meet various former detainees as if guided by fate.
-Government Fraud-
In March 2018, when I heard the news that a civil servant who had been ordered to tamper with official documents committed suicide, it was shocking. The person was Toshio Akagi, and he had been working at the Kinki Regional Taxation Bureau. I came across Masako Akagi, Toshio's wife, and started taking film of her. In contrast to the ugliness of the state power that ordered Toshio to tamper with the documents, her soul, which has maintained kindness, was beautiful. By carefully filming her life, I felt like I could encounter Toshio that had fallen out from her life. Through filmmaking, I wanted to resist the world that tries to forget him.
-Tokyo Ritornello-
In April 2020, amidst the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was walking around the outskirts of Tokyo, filming. I worked with Itaru Matsui and Naoki Uchiyama, who aimed to incorporate filmmaking into social movements by supporting anti-poverty workers and protesters. We named this project "Docu Meme," with the goal of integrating film records into society like genetic memes. I filmed the world through the perspective of Ali, a Kurdish man who sees Tokyo from the periphery. The short films we produced at Docu Meme were later re-edited into a feature-length film called "Tokyo Ritornello" and aired on NHK . The city of Tokyo appeared as if it were a single living organism, that was something I had never seen before.
『東京リトルネロ』予告編 [English CC]
-Docu Meme Shorts-
Short films produced as part of the documentary collective "Docu Meme," which originated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempted to connect support for the impoverished and social movements with film. These films were shot between 2020 and 2021. This is a record of our practice aiming to memeify and integrate them into society.
-Japan's Craftsmanship-
Through my experience in filmmaking, I came across something like intelligence embedded in human body. The movements of craftsmen seemed to sculpt things be preserved within the grand flow of time. I aspired for my own filmmaking to be similar, capturing that essence.