Living between Japan and Myanmar, Akio Fujimoto was born in 1988 in Osaka, Japan. After his college graduation where he studied family psychology, he enrolled in the Visual Arts Academy Osaka to study filmmaking. He worked as chief of the selection committee for the student film category at the Nara International Film Festival. In 2013, he completed his first short, PSYCHEDELIC FAMILY, a subtly crafted piece based on his own experiences. After graduating, he moved to Tokyo to work on his first feature, a Japan-Myanmar co-production PASSAGE OF LIFE (2017), which took 5 years to complete. The film focuses on a Burmese family living in Japan who gets split between the two countries.

His second feature ALONG THE SEA brings into light again the invisible communities in Japan.