On this episode of the podcast, we discuss Emma Kawawada’s first feature film, My Small Land, about a teenage Kurdish immigrant in Tokyo. The film is now in Canadian cinemas, and will soon be on VOD.
Listen to the episode on My Small Land on your favourite podcatcher
This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith.
About the film My Small Land
Kore-eda protegée Emma Kawawada’s first feature film, My Small Land, is the story of a Kurdish teenage girl, Sarya (Lina Arashi) who is an immigrant in Japan. She grew up just outside of Tokyo and has no memories of her home, which was colonised Kurdish territory in Turkey. My Small Land follows in the tradition of social realism, and the style of filmmaking owes much to Kore-eda’s small scale character dramas.
The film My Small Land is the story of her feelings of displacement — not having a land to really call her own, not feeling fully accepted in what is now her home — and her struggles in an immigrant family. Early in the film, Sarya and her family find out that their work visas are no long valid. If they work to survive, they could be deported. Kawawada sensitively tells a character drama about good people put in impossible situations by impersonal immigration systems.
In My Small Land, Kawawada gives an uncommon amount of time to let Arashi’s performance play out so we can understand Sarya’s agency and the decisions she makes within the very limited choices she has available. There are only bad choices, but we get to see her making choices. The film also grapples with the complex identity of being a Kurd, and especially, a refugee outside of traditional Kurdish territory.
My Small Land had its world premiere at the Berlinale in the Generation program, which is a program for young adults. We loved it at the festival and worried it would disappear. The new Canadian distribution company, Momo films, just released the film in Canadian cinemas.
My Small Land will be screening at TIFF from November 9 to 16. It will also be available on VOD soon.
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Related episodes
- Ep. 125: Berlinale 2022: Bonus 31 is an excerpt from this earlier episode on the Berlinale. We discuss My Small Land, as well as other films in the Generation section at the festival.
- Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition: Discover some of our favourite films from last year’s Berlinale.
- Women at Cannes Ep. 5: Discover more exciting first features by women that screened at Cannes 2022, which is another omnibus episode on film festival favorites.
Show Notes
- Become a member for access to all of our upcoming episodes, as well as our entire archive of episodes.
- Listen to our Berlinale 2022 episode in which we discuss My Small Land and other highlights of the festival’s Generation section
- Listen to our previous podcast season on Women at Cannes
- Read Alex Heeney on Canadian immigration stories at TIFF 2022.
- Read Alex Heeney’s review of Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister
The transcript for this episode is AI-generated by Otter.ai.
[fusebox_transcript]
