Close Menu
  • Login
  • Support Us
  • Newsletter
  • News
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
    • Video Games
      • Previews
      • PC
      • PS5
      • Xbox Series X/S
      • Nintendo Switch
      • Xbox One
      • PS4
      • Tabletop
    • Film
    • TV
    • Anime
    • Comics
      • BOOM! Studios
      • Dark Horse Comics
      • DC Comics
      • IDW Publishing
      • Image Comics
      • Indie Comics
      • Marvel Comics
      • Oni-Lion Forge
      • Valiant Comics
      • Vault Comics
  • Podcast
  • More
    • Event Coverage
    • BWT Recommends
    • RSS Feeds
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Support Us
But Why Tho?
RSS Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube
Trending:
  • Features
    Marvel's Spider-Man Secret Lair promotional image

    Get a Look At the Secret Lair x Marvel’s Spider-Man Superdrop

    09/08/2025
    Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions gameplay still

    Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions Is All About Adventure (with Friends)

    09/08/2025
    Chord in Persona 5 The Phantom X

    Now Is The Perfect Time To Jump Back In ‘Persona 5: The Phantom X’

    09/05/2025
    Cosmic Spider-Man card details

    [EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW] The Spider-Man Set Gets A 5-Color Legendary Spider

    09/02/2025
    Lee Corso from College Football GameDay in EA Sports games

    EA Sports Always Understood Lee Corso’s Legacy

    09/01/2025
  • Indie Games
  • K-Dramas
  • Netflix
  • Apple TV+
But Why Tho?
Home » Film » FANTASIA FEST 2022: ‘My Small Land’ Is a Beautiful and Bittersweet Tale of Belonging

FANTASIA FEST 2022: ‘My Small Land’ Is a Beautiful and Bittersweet Tale of Belonging

Ricardo GallegosBy Ricardo Gallegos07/22/20224 Mins ReadUpdated:12/10/2022
My Small Land - But Why Tho
Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reddit WhatsApp Email

My Small Land - But Why Tho

Young director Emma Kawawada makes her feature debut with My Small Land, a remarkable film that depicts the struggle of migrants living in Japan, a story that we rarely see in Japanese cinema. 

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here

Sarya (Lina Arashi) is a sixteen-year-old Kurdish girl who has friends, great grades, and a part-time job in a convenience store where she works alongside handsome Sato (Daiken Okudaira) to save money to fulfill her dream of being a teacher. She and her family arrived in Japan many years ago after her father Mazlum (Arashi Kahafi Zadeh) became a persona non grata for advocating Kurdish liberation. Sarya simply tells everyone she’s German to avoid difficult questions about Kurd history and her status as a refugee. She’s also struggling to understand and accept her roots.

Things get difficult for Sarya and her family when Mazlum’s refugee status is not accepted and all their visas are deemed invalid. They are not allowed to work or leave the Saitama prefecture without permission from the government. With the need to make money, the family is soon forced to deal with difficult decisions as well as the prejudice of everyone around them. They don’t have a country to call their own and the visa rejection exacerbates their feelings of exclusion.

Japan is a tough country for people looking to be recognized as refugees. In 2020, they granted said status to only 47 out of 3,936 applicants, a depressingly significant rise compared to 2019, when only 44 out of 10,375 applicants were accepted. My Small Land points a finger at this issue by highlighting how it deeply affects the life of a loving and talented young woman. Besides the restrictions that come with her rejected visa, Sarya has to face multiple instances of small but hurtful discrimination, most of it stemming from a lack of empathy or understanding from the general public; every time she explains any detail about her situation she’s faced with surprised and confused looks. People don’t seem to know the difficulties that the government makes the refugees go through.

This spills into Sarya’s inner conflict. In the first scene, we meet our timid protagonist in the middle of a Kurdish wedding; her uncomfortable stance soon turns into worry when a relative warns her she’s next in line for a nuptial celebration. This idea is explored throughout the film as Sarya struggles to accept the traditions of her people. She disagrees with her father, doesn’t understand the purpose of praying, and low-key rebels against the lack of liberty imposed on her. She doesn’t feel love toward her homeland because she grew up in Japan: she has embraced this country as her homeland. However, her status in limbo traps her between two cultures, one that she can’t fully accept and one that rejects her. 

Sarya has to juggle all these things while also trying to be a teenager. She wants to keep working, go to college, and have a boyfriend. Instead, she has to deal with the pressures of finding money for her family, enduring casual discrimination, and the heavy emotional toll of feeling that she doesn’t belong anywhere. Lina Arashi, a model and actress of Iranian descent, is exceptional in this role: she’s always convincing as a reserved and resilient teenager, projecting just the right amount of fragility and confusion to avoid falling into melodramatic territory. It’s a controller performance that effectively embodies the many threads of this story. And she has this awkward chemistry with Daiken Okudaira too, which creates a cute romantic subplot that evolves into something more powerful.

Kawawada skillfully tackles the sociopolitical and cultural themes at hand through an intimate approach that, aided by Hidetoshi Shinomiya’s beautiful cinematography, allows you to empathize with her main character. She doesn’t use an in-your-face approach to talk about these problems, relying on subtlety and slow-burn storytelling instead. And by intermingling endearing and joyful moments, she gives a lightweight quality to what easily could’ve been a heavy story.  

My Small Land is a bittersweet and beautiful cinematographic package that explores themes of belonging, rejection, and statelessness through a poignant social critique handled with impressive delicacy by Kawawada.

My Small Land screened at Fantasia Fest 2022.

My Small Land
  • 9/10
    Rating - 9/10
9/10

TL;DR

My Small Land is a bittersweet and beautiful cinematographic package that explores themes of belonging, rejection, and statelessness through a poignant social critique handled with impressive delicacy by Kawawada.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
Previous ArticleFANTASIA FEST 2022: ‘Stellar: A Magical Ride’ is Comedic Grief with Heart (and Gangsters)
Next Article REVIEW: ‘Shine On! Bakumatsu Bad Boys,’ Episode 3 – “Disguise Yourself! Infiltrating The Red Light District”
Ricardo Gallegos

Ricardo is a Mexico City-based bilingual writer, Certified Rotten Tomatoes film critic and Digital Animation graduate. He loves cats, Mass Effect, Paddington and is the founder of the film website “La Estatuilla.

Related Posts

The Long Walk (2025) film review promotional image
9.5

REVIEW: ‘The Long Walk’ Is The Most Heartfelt And Heartbreaking Stephen King Adaptation

09/11/2025
Natasha O’Keeffe in Whitetail
6.5

TIFF 2025: ‘Whitetail’ Is An Intimate View Of A Woman Stuck In Time

09/10/2025
Love Brooklyn
6.0

REVIEW: ‘Love, Brooklyn’ Rests on Pretty

09/10/2025
Park Jeong-min in The Ugly
7.0

TIFF 2025: ‘The Ugly’ Is A Harsh Exercise In Self-Reflection

09/09/2025
No Other Choice
9.0

TIFF 2025: ‘No Other Choice’ Delivers a Bleak Vision of Capitalism

09/09/2025
Molly Lewis in Whistle
8.0

TIFF 2025: ‘Whistle’ Is A Breath Of Fresh Air

09/07/2025

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here
TRENDING POSTS
The Long Walk (2025) film review promotional image
9.5
Film

REVIEW: ‘The Long Walk’ Is The Most Heartfelt And Heartbreaking Stephen King Adaptation

By Kate Sánchez09/11/2025Updated:09/11/2025

The Long Walk is a brutal watch. Equally heartfelt and heartbreaking, it’s one of the best adaptations of Stephen King’s work.

EA Sports FC Icons Match promotional image from Nexon News

2025 Icons Match Returns With Football Legends Bridging The Pitch And Video Games

By Kate Sánchez09/03/2025Updated:09/03/2025

NEXON has announced the return of the ‘2025 Icons Match,’ a live event that brings a full roster of legendary players to the pitch.

Black Women Anime — But Why Tho (9) BWT Recommends

10 Black Women in Anime That Made Me Feel Seen

By LaNeysha Campbell11/11/2023Updated:12/03/2024

Black women are some of anime’s most iconic characters, and that has a big impact on Black anime fans. Here are some of our favorites.

DanDaDan Season 2 Episode 11
8.5
Anime

REVIEW: ‘DanDaDan’ Season 2 Episode 11 – “Hey, It’s a Kaiju”

By Allyson Johnson09/11/2025

The ragtag group faces down the mysterious kaiju in the thrilling and beautifully animated DanDaDan Season 2 Episode 11.

But Why Tho?
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest RSS YouTube Twitch
  • CONTACT US
  • ABOUT US
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
  • Review Score Guide
Sometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small contribution.
Written Content is Copyright © 2025 But Why Tho? A Geek Community

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

But Why Tho Logo

Support Us!

We're able to keep making content thanks to readers like YOU!
Support independent media today with
Click Here