Women Film Makers

[tim.iles@utoronto.ca]

Hi, All;

I've had a question from a Spanish woman studying Japanese film in Venice (don't
you love globalisation? ^_^) about film schools in Japan that either focus on or
else have a high percentage of female students, but I have absolutely no idea
about such places... Can anyone offer any thoughts? I'd be surprised if there
were schools specifically for women, but--given the overwhelming predominance of
men in the Japanese film ndustry--can anyone offer any stats on percentages of
women at various film schools?

As a related aside, any favourite female directors and their films? Frankly, in
Canada I find it _very_ difficult to find work by Japanese female directors, and
that's quite disappointing. It's a distribution issue, of course, which is
always problematic, but I'm sure it goes beyond that to issues of... well,
existence of female directors, for one! Lower numbers + lower numbers of films
released = fewer opportunities for overseas distribution... = frustrated film
scholars!

Many thanks,


Tim Iles
University of Victoria