Using a hidden camera, Thomas Ash films asylum seekers who are held without perspective in the Ushiku immigration center, near Tokyo. Determined to put human rights violations on the map politically, he and the prisoners put their finger on Japan’s cynical migration policy.
Press
“Ash’s unflinching humanitarian documentary is an eye-opening exposé of the bureaucratic heartlessness at the centre of a needlessly hostile and inhumane immigration system.” – Hayley Scanlon, Windows on Worlds
“One of the asylum seekers interviewed by Ash in Ushiku bitterly asks: is this omotenashi, that famous Japanese hospitality?” – Luk Van Haute, De Standaard