In the same way that Western women are coming to confront what it is to be discriminated against leaving us toppling on the side of a communal feeling of liberation, women in Japan are increasingly finding more independence and acceptance in our patriarchal world. Following the success last year’s Reality Fiction: Japanese Films Inspired by Actual Events season, this year’s Japan Foundation annual touring film programme looks at contemporary Japanese cinema made for, about and sometimes by, women, with Girls on Film at the Filmhouse.
70% of Japanese cinema-goers are female
As with any country where filmmaking/writing is dominated by men, women are used as the vessel of discovery, and so it is for Japanese cinema. It is through women cinema can reach different and more challenging levels of emotion and as Shochiku company president Shiro Kido put it, embrace “more dramatic possibilites”.
So now as gender roles across the globe are altering, Japanese women too are beginning to break away from archetypal roles and are living and confronting a different life with different problems. Such a rife and politically intriguing area to be explored is naturally drawing a lot of attention and now 70% of Japanese cinema-goers are female which directly affects the film output.
So it’s this confrontation of the self that women across Japan are facing as they begin to embody a new identity and this mini-film festival aims to deliver a taste of Japanese society with some of the best-produced cinema from Japan in recent years. Trying to cover as much ground as possible the films range from established directors like Jun Ichikawa who is bringing How to Become Myself, an examination of young school girls as they battle to understand their new identity, to the up and coming like Satoko Yokohama.
Playing from 10th March – 14th March @Filmhouse
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