Ugandan Asylum Seeker in Japan Turns to Samurai Filmmaking as Deportation Looms

A Ugandan man who has spent more than a decade and a half in immigration limbo in Japan is confronting the threat of deportation by picking up a camera and telling a story that echoes his own. The new Al Jazeera Witness documentary "Sunday in Japan," directed by Antonio Rui Ribeiro, Leo Nelki and Golriz Kolahi, profiles the asylum seeker known only as Sunday, who has turned to filmmaking as an act of survival, dignity and hope.

Sunday's life in Japan is defined by uncertainty. For over 15 years he has lived without secure legal status, unable to return home and unable to fully settle in the country he now calls home. His experience includes a period of detention at the Shinagawa immigration centre, one of Japan's main facilities for holding foreigners facing removal. He is now required to report regularly to immigration authorities, a routine that keeps the threat of expulsion ever present.

Even as he navigates that bureaucracy, Sunday faces the daily challenge of providing for his children, relying on charitable assistance to help put food on the table. The documentary portrays a man caught between the need to comply with a system that offers him no permanent security and the determination to keep his family afloat.

The stakes have grown sharper in recent years. According to the documentary, changes to Japan's immigration laws mean Sunday could now face deportation, a prospect that transforms his long-running limbo into something more immediate and dangerous. The legal shifts reflect a broader tightening of asylum and migration policy in Japan, a country that has historically accepted very few refugees relative to the size of its economy.

Rather than allow himself to be reduced to a statistic in debates over immigration, Sunday channels his energy into an unlikely creative project: a samurai film. His inspiration is Yasuke, a figure remembered in Japanese history as the country's first Black samurai, an African who arrived in Japan in the late 16th century and entered the service of the warlord Oda Nobunaga. The choice of subject allows Sunday to connect his own story of displacement to a centuries-old narrative of a Black man finding a place in Japanese society.

For Sunday, the filmmaking process becomes more than an artistic pursuit. It serves as a means of asserting his humanity in a system that treats him primarily as a case number, and as a way of preserving hope for himself and his family. The documentary presents his creative labor as a form of quiet resistance against the forces that would remove him from the country.

Japan's immigration and asylum system has long drawn criticism from human rights organizations, which point to low recognition rates for refugees, lengthy detention periods and limited avenues for appeal. Asylum seekers often spend years in a state of provisional release while their applications are reviewed, barred from formal employment and dependent on support networks. Sunday's reliance on charity to feed his children illustrates the practical consequences of those restrictions.

His story also intersects with global conversations about race, migration and belonging. As a Black African man in a largely homogeneous society, Sunday occupies a particularly precarious position, and his turn to the story of Yasuke suggests an effort to claim a place in Japanese history rather than remain a perpetual outsider. The samurai genre, deeply embedded in Japanese cultural identity, becomes an unexpected vehicle for that claim.

The documentary arrives at a moment when many countries are reassessing their asylum frameworks amid political pressure to restrict arrivals and accelerate removals. For viewers, Sunday's case raises questions about what states owe to long-term residents who have built lives and families within their borders, even when their legal status remains unresolved.

The film is part of Al Jazeera's Witness strand, which showcases documentary storytelling from around the world. Recent episodes in the series have examined topics ranging from families searching for missing migrants at the US-Mexico border to a father's pursuit of justice after Greece's worst train crash, reflecting the strand's focus on personal stories behind larger political and social issues.

By centering on one man's determination to create art while under threat of removal, "Sunday in Japan" offers a portrait of resilience that goes beyond policy debates. Sunday's samurai film, inspired by his own life, becomes both a creative refuge and a statement that he will not disappear quietly from the country he has inhabited for more than 15 years.

The documentary's release invites audiences to consider how immigration systems shape individual lives over long periods, and what it means to live in limbo for years on end. Sunday's story is ultimately about the tension between a state's power to exclude and an individual's insistence on being seen, heard and remembered.

For Sunday himself, the project represents a form of agency in circumstances largely beyond his control. While the prospect of deportation remains unresolved and the need for charitable support persists, his commitment to filmmaking signals that hope and dignity can survive even the most protracted periods of uncertainty, and that a story told well can outlast the bureaucracy that seeks to define him.