Japanese Female Directors

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Mariko Miyagi is back documenting the activities of disabled children from her own school, Nemunoki. This time, the whole documentary focuses itself on the powers of creativity and drawing.Read More »

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On the anniversary of the death of the mother of a hip and happening Tokyo-based photographer, the son returns to his hometown for the funeral. What follows is a return to the past that is more than just a trek home. Old relationships, love, conflicts and memories resurface and collide. Apparently, old perspectives don’t wither.Read More »

A response to a poem about concrete and city, by way of fauna and nature.Read More »

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Working between text, sound, and moving-image, Hayama crafts profoundly beautiful short films whose obliquely mythopoetic narratives explore what might best be termed “ecological anomie.” Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as the Lumière brothers, medieval Japanese poetry, and proto-scientific treatises by Goethe and Aristotle, Hayama’s works probe the essential loneliness experienced by a human-kind which has been estranged from the unity of nature by our modern systems of perception and knowledge production. While many experimental filmmakers operating in a romantic mode have taken nature as a subject – often seeking to spectacularize her optical presence through the creation of “transcendent” imagery – Hayama’s films are characterized by an uncommon sense of aesthetic restraint, a conscious preservation of critical distance in the face of nature’s inscrutability and our own primordial entanglement within it.Read More »

In the late 1950’s prostitution was banned in Japan and if a woman was found exercising this profession they were sent to a reformatory. This is a story of one of these brave women Kuniko who is released from the reformatory and tries to build a new life.Read More »

A landmark in Japanese cinema, The Far Road is the first feature film planned, produced, and directed as well as starred in by a woman, Sachiko Hidari. Inspired by her many years of work as an actress in the films of such illustrious directors as Heinosuke Gosho and Yasuzo Masumura (also represented in the current series), she uses a spare cinematic style to tell the story of a fight for human dignity: a living wage and job security in the face of mechanization of the railroads. The film was financed by the National Railways Workers Union, whose members, because they work for a “public corporation,” do not have the right to strike.
– BAMPFA (1979)Read More »

The poignant focal point for this film is a cherry tree that is over 1400 years old. Beginning with the tree, the director then explores the families and environment around the tree. The editing and music contribute to the sense of a haunting past contained within the solid structure of an ancient natural wonder.Read More »

Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, Pu Wen, marries Ryuko the daughter of a long-established aristocratic family – all in the interest of the Japanese rulers, which legitimizes the relationship between Japan and its Chinese puppet state. To the surprise of all , a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops. It is put to the test when Japan loses the war, Manchukuo is dissolved and the imperial court must flee. The lovers now have to separate: Pu Zhe tries to escape to Japan with his brother, while Ryuko flees with her daughter Eisei over the country. A film on the relationship between Pujie (1907-94), brother of the “last emperor” Puyi and his second wife, Marquise Hiro Saga (1914-87).Read More »

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The floating clouds between the high buildings, the lines of the taillights under the moonlight, the swirling human waves… Every view in Tokyo looks as if it is alive. Before even she realizes, TOUKO starts to run away from somewhere in the city. As an actress in a fantasy world, Touko seems to have lost her grip on reality. Along her journey, she makes acquaintance with people who carry similar issues. A midnight truck driver NAGANO, who happens to give Touko a ride, is grappling with the discovery of his soul, and his soul is unable to move forward. His escape from reality is to continually move from place to place. Read More »