Colorado Conference

[Aaron Gerow]

Cris had problems posting this to the list, so I'm posting it for him:

Report on the Colorado Conference for KineJapan

The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University 
of Colorado at Boulder (CO), organized a film series and a conference 
on "Japanese Women Filmmakers," October 5-7, 2000.
Organizing a film series on Japanese Women filmmakers is not easy, to 
say the least. Films are not easily available and the cost is very 
high. Fortunately,  we received a great support in the person of 
Pablo Kjolseth, director of the International Film Series at CU 
Boulder. Moreover, because of the generosity of all the sponsors (all 
from the university of Colorado), we could afford 5 films. Each film 
costs about $1,500 (about $300 to 500 for the renting, and about $500 
for transportation from Japan to $500 to send them back). We also 
shared the cost with Pittsburg U., where Keiko McDonald, Professor of 
Japanese, was organizing a similar film series in coordination with 
ours.
The film series was spread over 5 weeks, with one film every week, 
from September 6 to October 3. It started with Tanaka Kinuyo's 
Eternal Breast, and Girls of the Night, then Hidari Sachiko's The Far 
Roads, Kawase Naomi's Moe no suzaku, and on October third, the night 
before the conference started, Hamano's Search of Osaki Midori.
The audience was pretty impressive for films that were not very 
famous/popular in America, or in even Japan.
As for the conference, after a brief and interesting introduction by 
Mr. Mori, the consul of Japan in Denver, Prof. Rodd, head of the EALC 
Dept., introduced the first panel entitled "Recent Trends in Women's 
Films." The first paper was Aaron Gerow's, read by Abe Markus Nornes, 
entitled "The Image of Self: Women Personal Filmmakers in the Early 
Nineties." Very interesting paper written by one of the specialist of 
Japanese film (Hi Aaron!), and beautifully read by another 
specialist, Abe Markus Nornes (Hi Markus!), since Aaron could not 
come to the conference. The second paper was also very interesting, 
and was entitled "The indemnity Mrs. Mimasu Pleaded: A Merging of the 
image and the Real," by Minaguchi Kiseko, from Teikyo U. (Tokyo).
Then, after a reception, Naomi Kawase, Japanese film director, author 
of the internationally acclaimed "Moe no Suzaku" (1997) and our first 
keynote speaker, talked about her work in a very personal and lively 
way. She then answered questions among which some were even more 
personal (i.e. about the relation between her films and her 
ex-husband/producer). Her talk was in Japanese, and it was translated 
by Kyoko Saegusa, senior instructor at CU Boulder, with great 
professionalism and humor.
On Friday, after two more panels, respectively entitled "In Search of 
Hamano's Lost Female Artist" (with Hamano herself, and a Ph.D. 
student from University of Tokyo who presented a very intriguing 
paper on "Sexuality in Hamano's Film"), and "Female 'Pink' and Porn" 
(a challenging topic with two challenging papers by Roland Domenig, 
Prof. of Japanese Cinema at Vienna U., and Kimura Saeko, from Tokyo 
U.), the second keynote speaker, Keiko McDonald, Professor of 
Japanese Literature and Film, at Pittsburg University, gave her talk 
on the historical and biographical background of women filmmaking. 
She went this last summer to Tokyo to start her research on the topic 
of a possible future book on "Japanese Women Filmmakers," and gave us 
the result of her research in a very lively way that is typical of 
her.
We then had two special talks. The first one was by Sachi Hamano, 
director of more than 300 pink films, and of the beautiful film (for 
me, one of the best Japanese films made in the last decade!), In 
Search of Osaki Midori, talked about the making of her film and its 
relation with the writer s' novella.
The second one was by Barbara Hammer on her documentary on Ogawa 
Production, a very interesting documentary that has already received 
several prizes. We then had 3 more panels, respectively entitled, 
"Ogawa Productions and Women's Documentaries,"  "Male representations 
of Females" (with three very different papers by Barbara 
Hammer-already mentioned above--, Markus's "Non-Fiction Film and the 
Fate of Feminism," and Linda White's "Searching for the Subject: 
Positionality in 'Ripples of Change'"). The final panel on Saturday 
morning, "Pioneers for Ever," consisted of two insightful 
presentations on the first female pioneer, Atsugi, in the 1930s, 
presented by Hori Hikari, a Ph.D. student of Gakushuin U., and on the 
avant-garde "Jungian," famous documentarist, in the sixties, 
Idemitsu, presented by Tamae Prindle, Professor of Japanese at Colby 
College.
Although the number of presenters was limited, it was an 
international crowd (Japan, USA, Canada, Austria, and Belgium). As we 
could expect from such a narrow topic, the audience for the 
conference was not very big. Moreover, it was fall break at CU 
Boulder. However, the atmosphere was extremely warm and friendly. The 
presentations and questions were both, in English and Japanese. Some 
participants volunteered to interpret for the Japanese not speaking 
English and conversely, for Americans not speaking Japanese.
During the conclusions, we talked mainly about the possibilities of 
publishing the proceedings, or at least some of the papers presented, 
and about the possibility of a follow-up of the conference, if 
possible in Japan. Without reaching an agreement, we all hoped (and 
are still hoping, I am sure!) that we will meet again in the next 
future for a similar event with, as suggested, a broader title such 
as "Gender and Films"???  My personal wish is to have somebody in 
America who could gather the information and even importantly, buy 
the copyrights to distribute the films made by Japanese Women 
Filmmakers at the more reasonable price, whether it is in print form 
or video format.

Cris Reyns-Chikuma
Asst. Prof. at Lafayette C. (PA, USA)