Girls on Film: Females in Contemporary Japanese Cinema

9 Feb 2010 – 17 Feb 2010

This year’s Japan Foundation annual touring film programme looks at contemporary Japanese cinema made for, about, and by women. Women have continuously been at the centre of Japanese cinema, with notable examples being films by Kenji Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse, and even the animation works of Hayao Miyazaki. This year’s Japanese season reflects the marked increase in the number of women working in the Japanese film industry. The mix of films included may also allow audiences to compare and contrast the views of female directors to their male counterparts.

This film season is produced and organised by the Japan Foundation with advice from Jasper Sharp.

Asyle

17 Feb 2010

Tsuyako runs a dilapidated ‘love hotel’ seeing through the loneliness of each visitor providing them with unassuming support.

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Non-Ko

16 Feb 2010

Maki Sakai is excellent as the thirtysomething woman struggling with life’s failures and disappointments in this distinctive, stylish film.

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Fourteen

13 Feb 2010

An atmospheric and subtle drama in which two different generations mirror each other in the most vulnerable period of their lives.

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German Plus Rain

11 Feb 2010

Yokohama Satoko’s exuberant movie centres on a young misfit living in a small town.

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Kamome Diner

10 Feb 2010 – 13 Feb 2010

A heart-warming human drama that portrays the interaction between a restaurant owner and the eccentric people who gather there day after day.

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How to Become Myself

9 Feb 2010 – 14 Feb 2010

Two schoolfriends struggle with notions of identity and selfhood in this drama from the late Jun Icikawa.

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