The Japan-Myanmar co-production “My Country My Home” aims to bring together audiences from both countries. It received a very enthusiastic reception at its screening at the on Friday, April 19, so we can see it is succeeding. The crowd at the Sakurazaka Theatre included many people from Myanmar living in Okinawa who showered the cast and crew of the film with bouquets of flowers and gifts.

The film starts with 18-year-old Nan (young Myanmar star Wutt Hmone Shwe Yi) graduating high school in Tokyo and preparing to go to study as a pastry chef. Although she was taught the Burmese language by her father, who runs a Burmese restaurant, Nan considers herself Japanese. And because she was born and raised in Japan, she assumes she is a Japanese citizen. Her father informs her that she does not hold citizenship of either country, making her a stateless person. Nan is angry until she reads a diary left behind by her late mother that reveals the political circumstances that forced her parents to flee their homeland.

Nan decides to make her first-ever trip to Myanmar to visit the relatives she has never met, and reconnects with a Myanmar-born Japan-based pop singer (Win Morisaki) she idolizes. Eventually, Nan comes to realize that far from being stateless, she in fact has two countries. Speaking after the screening, actress Wutt Hmone Shwe Yi said that as soon as she was cast, she began studying Japanese so she could talk like a person who has lived her whole life in the country. “There was also a lot of preparations to make within myself to get into the right frame of mind,” she said.

Yan Aung, who plays Nan’s father, is a celebrated actor with a long career in Myanmar, but said that he learned a lot of things by filming in Tokyo. “It was really impressive to see how dedicated and hard working the Japanese crew was,” he recalled.

Win Morisaki, like the character he plays, as also born in Myanmar and became a singer in Japan before going on to act in Japanese films and the Steven Spielberg-directed “Ready Player One.” “It was a really wonderful opportunity to be able to take part in this project that brings together my two countries,” he said. “I hope to act in other films in the future that not only connect Japan and Myanmar, but those two countries with other parts of the world.”

Producer Nan Mauk Laung Saing said that the film is about a person who is bridges Japan and Myanmar, and the production itself bridges those countries. “That is why it’s wonderful to so much support from audiences in both countries.”

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