Of Love & Law

Saturday 20 October, Cinema 1, 4:00pm

 

As an openly gay couple in Osaka, Fumi and Kazu bring impassioned personal experience to their professional lives as pioneers of Japan’s first LGBT law firm. This astonishingly dedicated pair champion civil liberties in a superficially modern, but disturbingly conservative country that has been censured by Amnesty International for moving away from global human rights standards. Their clients include undocumented minorities with no legal status; a teacher fired for refusing to sing the national anthem; and feminist sculptor Rokudenashiko, whose playful vagina art was prosecuted for obscenity. Hikaru Toda takes a suitably wide-ranging approach in her eye-opening and affecting documentary, following these modest heroes at work and home, while also examining a homogeneous society that is often misrepresented in the West.