What Should We Have Done?
(Dou sureba yokattaka?)- JAPAN / 2023 / Japanese / Color, B&W / DCP / 102 min
Director: Fujino Tomoaki
Photography, Editing: Fujino Tomoaki, Asano Yumiko
Producer: Asano Yumiko
Production Company: MOVING IMAGES STUDIO ZOU-SHIMA
In 1983, the director’s 24-year-old sister developed symptoms of schizophrenia. Her parents couldn’t accept it—refusing to seek treatment for their sick daughter, they confined her to the house, to the point of even fixing a padlock on the front door to lock her in. Her younger brother, suspicious of his parents’ actions, began filming the family in an effort to openly question them. A family conflict that lasted over twenty years.
Born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, 1966. Fujino graduated from the Japanese Academy of Moving Images after studying in Hokkaido University’s Faculty of Agriculture. He mainly makes films about human rights violations against minorities. His films include Get Back: Captive Ainu Remains (2019), Kamuycep Salmon Fishing and Indigenous Rights (2020), Ainu Style Burial, 2019, and Toepets-kotan (2021). He participated in the filmmakers residency, Yamagata Documentary Dojo 4, in 2022.