[A Half- day Workshop]
Introduction to Documentary by Toru Kubota @torukubota23
Time: 1:00 pm–5:00 pm, 9th May 2026 Venue: Docu Athan Square
Language: English and Burmese
【Lecture and Discussion】
What is documentary?
The origins of moving images
The blurred line between fiction and non-fiction
War, images, and propaganda
Documentary as a point of view
The Six Modes of Documentary
[Register from here!]
https://forms.gle/HfVpYZCXdv91Mdbh6
A lens pointed at truth became a confrontation with power.
Toru Kubota’s path from political science student to documentary filmmaker placed him inside one of Myanmar’s most volatile realities. What began as an attempt to understand Rohingya communities evolved into a deeper commitment to documenting lived experience beyond headlines and ideology.
His work took him from displacement camps in Rakhine State to the shifting streets of Yangon after the 2021 coup, where repression and resistance coexisted in fragile tension. In 2022, that commitment led to his arrest while filming a protest. Detained, interrogated, and sentenced to a decade in prison, Kubota faced the consequences of witnessing in a system that punishes visibility.
What endures is not only the experience of imprisonment, but the clarity it brought.
Following his release, Kubota redirected his work toward those still silenced. Through initiatives supporting exiled Burmese filmmakers and journalists along the Thai–Myanmar border, he has helped build channels for stories that might otherwise disappear. His efforts extend beyond documentation into infrastructure, training, and access.
At its core, this exchange explores the limits of objectivity, the discipline of empathy, and the responsibility that follows once one has seen clearly.
Listen to the full conversation via Insight Myanmar’s LinkTree in bio.
mta.Japan ミルクティー同盟日本(Milk Tea Alliance Japan)メンバーの北角裕樹さんが、ミャンマーのために行っている活動について話して下さいました。ミャンマーへの思い、クーデター時に拘束された時の経験などを、お話下さっています。
Mr. Yuki Kitazumi, a member of the Milk Tea Alliance Japan, spoke about his activities for Myanmar. He is sharing his thoughts on Myanmar and his experiences during his detention following the coup.
YouTube、Instagram、Xの各公式SNSにて、MTA Japanのメンバーや活動に関する情報を発信しております。
最新情報はプロフィールリンクよりご覧いただき、ぜひフォローをお願いいたします。
We share information about MTA Japan members and activities on our official YouTube, Instagram, and X accounts. Please check the profile links for the latest updates and follow us.
MTA Japan @mta.japan
ドキュ・アッタン @docuathan
In 2022, Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota was detained and imprisoned for documenting protests in Myanmar. He may not be able to return to the country today, but he has found another way to stand with its people: by helping keep their stories alive.
From Mae Sot, on the Thai-Myanmar border, Kubota has helped support exiled Myanmar journalists and filmmakers with camera access, training, and a platform to continue documenting life under military rule. In a context where repression tries to silence truth, this kind of work is not just creative support. It is infrastructure for memory, visibility, and resistance.
What stays with him most is this: when direct access is cut off, solidarity can still evolve. It can become mentorship. It can become resource-sharing. It can become a commitment to make sure the world does not move on too quickly.
Myanmar should not disappear from the global conversation simply because the headlines have slowed down.
What responsibility do storytellers, media institutions, and audiences have when a crisis becomes “old news” but the suffering continues?
Watch the full video here: /watch?v=S4udCxrVS6A
Credit: NHK WORLD-JAPAN, “Documenting life under Myanmar’s junta”
ミルクティー同盟日本(Milk Tea Alliance Japan)メンバーの久保田徹さんが、ミャンマーのために行っている活動について話して下さいました。ミャンマーでの拘束が原動力になっていること、まだ獄中にいる人たちへの想いが感じられます。
Mr. Toru Kubota, a member of the Milk Tea Alliance Japan, spoke about his activities for Myanmar. His drive stems from the detentions in Myanmar, and his thoughts for those still imprisoned are palpable.
YouTube、Instagram、Xの各公式SNSにて、MTA Japanのメンバーや活動に関する情報を発信しております。
最新情報はプロフィールリンクよりご覧いただき、ぜひフォローをお願いいたします。
We share information about MTA Japan members and activities on our official YouTube, Instagram, and X accounts. Please check the profile links for the latest updates and follow us.
MTA Japan @mta.japan
久保田徹 @torukubota23
Learn Basic Camera Maintenance & Shooting
Register from here↓ https://forms.gle/yJTDvpMJtg8RFuv16
Docu Athan သည် Thailand/ Burma borderline တွင် သတင်းမှန်ရရှိရေးနှင့် တရားမျှတမှုအတွက် အနုပညာပုံသဏ္ဌာန်အမျိုးမျိုးဖြင့် ရိုက်ကူးတင်ဆက်နေသူများအသုံးပြုနိုင်ရန် ကင်မရာနှင့် ဆက်စပ်ပစ္စည်း အငှါးဝန်ဆောင်မှုလုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိသည်။
Docu Athan provides a camera and equipment rental service for those working to obtain accurate information and promote justice in various artistic forms on the Thailand/Burma borderline.
သို့သော် ကင်မရာကို စနစ်တကျ ကိုင်တွယ်အသုံးပြုနည်း မသိမှုကြောင့် ပစ္စည်းများ ပျက်စီးသွားခြင်းများ ရှိနေသဖြင့် ဤသင်တန်းကို စီစဉ်ရခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကင်မရာ ကိုင်တွယ်အသုံးပြုနည်း အခြေခံကျ မသိသေးသူများကို မဖြစ်မနေ ပါဝင်ရန် အကြံပြုပါသည်။
However, this course is designed to help those who do not know how to use a camera properly and who have damaged their equipment. It is recommended that those who do not yet know the basics of how to use a camera participate.
ယခုအချိန်မှ စတင်၍ ဤသင်တန်းတွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့သူများသာ GH5 ကဲ့သို့သော အချို့ကင်မရာများကို ငှားယူနိုင်ပါမည်။ သတ်မှတ်ထားသည့် လူဦးရေပြည့်ပါက စာရင်းပိတ်မည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ (Around 30 people)
From now on, only those who have participated in this course will be able to rent certain cameras, such as the GH5. Registration will close when the number of participants is reached. (Around 30 people)
🧑🏽🏫【သင်ကြားမည့် အကြောင်းအရာများ】📷
- ကင်မရာထိန်းသိမ်းစောင့်ရှောက်နည်းနှင့် လုံခြုံစိတ်ချစွာ သယ်ဆောင်ခြင်း
- Manual Exposure ကို ကျွမ်းကျင်စွာ လေ့လာခြင်း
• Shutter Speed
• Aperture
• ISO
- Focal Length နှင့် Angle of View
- အရည်သွေးမြင့် ရုပ်သံရိုက်ကူးခြင်း (Recording Quality) နှင့် Bit rate
Happy New Year!!
ပျော်ရွှင်ဖွယ်နှစ်သစ်!!
Docu Athan have a new year event on 5th of Jan.
One is screening event. We show the Palestine documentary "From Ground Zero"
Another one is a Japanese style new year party. We will serve Japanese "Powerful Noodle"
ပျော်ရွှင်ဖွယ်နှစ်သစ်!!
ဇန်နဝါရီလ 5 ရက်နေ့တွင် Docu Athan မှာ နှစ်သစ်အတွက် အစီအစဉ်တစ်ခုရှိပါသည်။
အဆိုပါအစီစဉ်မှာ မှတ်တမ်းရုပ်ရှင်ပြသသွားမှာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ပါလက်စတိုင်း မှတ်တမ်းရုပ်ရှင်တစ်ခု ဖြစ်တဲ့ “From Ground Zero” ပါဝင်ပြီး
နောက်တစ်ခုက ဂျပန်စတိုင် နှစ်သစ်ကူးပါတီဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ အဲ့အစီစဉ်မှာတော့ ဂျပန် "Powerful Noodle" ကျွေးပါမည်။
Date: the 5th of Jan, 2026(MON)
Time: 2pm Screening and Kagamibiraki(opening rice cake) ceremony 5pm Party
Venue: Docu Athan Square
「ドキュ・アッタンシアター #tokyo 生きるための芸術 メーソットから」無事に終了しました!4日間で160名以上にご覧いただきました!来場者の方々はもとより、ご協力いただいた全ての方々に感謝申し上げます。
主催: 一般社団法人Docu Athan @docuathan
助成:公益財団法人東京都歴史文化財団 アーツカウンシル東京
展覧会企画・構成: 居原田遥 @ihaharu
Docu Athan Theater #Tokyo: Art for Living — From Mae Sot has successfully come to an end!
Over four days, more than 160 people attended the event.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who joined us, as well as to all those who supported and made this event possible.