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The Cherry Tree with Gray Blossoms (Usuzumi no sakura - 薄墨ã®æ¡œ), dir. Haneda Sumiko , Japan 1977, 43min., 16mm
This screening celebrates the work of Haneda Sumiko, one of the most prominent documentary filmmakers from Japan and one of the few women working in non-fiction cinema there in the post-war period.
Born in 1926, in Dalian, China (then Manchuria, under Japanese occupation), in 1949 Haneda entered Iwanami Productions, a company producing educational and promotional films, where she would make films about the arts, education, and nature, including A Women’s College in the Village (1958), Ancient Beauty (1958), or The Cabbage Butterflies (1968). In 1976 she directed her first independent film, The Cherry Tree with Gray Blossoms, a personal project she had worked on for many years.
Haneda led a prolific career and directed over 80 short and long films. In addition, she founded her own production company Jiyu Kubo with her husband Kudo Mitsuru and published books about her filmmaking. She made films about folkloric dances and changing rural traditions (Ode to Mt. Hayachine, 1982), portraits of aging artists such as Akiko-Portrait of a Dancer (1985) or the monumental Kabuki Actor Kataoke Nizaimon (1992 – 1996).
Haneda received widespread recognition for her films about welfare politics and caring for the elderly. Other work she did deals with the legacies and histories of feminism in Japan, with films about pioneer women in labour unions, and about the life of writer and peace activist Hiratsuka Raicho. Later in her career, Haneda reflected upon her early life in China with films about the Japanese settlers in Manchuria such as Faraway Home – Lushun and Dalian (2011). She also participated in the creation of the Tokyo International Women’s Film Festival (1985 – 2012), the first of its kind in Japan.
This screening will be introduced by Ricardo Matos Cabo.
Programme:
A Women’s College in the Village (Machi no fujin gakkyu - æ‘ã®å©¦äººå¦ç´š)
dir. Haneda Sumiko, Japan 1957, 25 min.
The first film directed by Haneda Sumiko for Iwanami Productions depicts the efforts of women in a small village to overcome their conventional lives, while struggling with their daily toil, worrying about how to care for their households.
The Cherry Tree with Gray Blossoms (Usuzumi no sakura - 薄墨ã®æ¡œ)
dir. Haneda Sumiko, Japan 1977, 43min., 16mm
Haneda’s first independent film, a project she honed over several years, is a paean to a millenary cherry tree that can be found in the Neo village in the Gifu prefecture. The film deals with the history of this magnificent tree, the changing social life of the community living around it and the filmmaker’s memories. As Haneda wrote, this personal film became an act of self-discovery, both a gesture of celebration and mourning, which allowed her to find a new path in filmmaking.
‘Trees are animate in Japanese culture, and Haneda treats the object of her research as the main hero and an independent creature, while social life, natural landscape, poetry, and intimate impressions are built around it. Everything is interconnected in this film – the voice over with the discourse on imminent changes, the languid pace of landscapes changing in different seasons, people caught by camera, thoughts on sorrowful loss and memories. It provides an authentic view of the lost traditional and leisurely Japan before the technological and consumer boom. People in this country truly feel their connection to the earth they live in and poetry they have composed about their motherland for many centuries.’ (Unattributed, adapted from https://garagemca.org/)
This screening is held in partnership with the Japan Foundation. With special thanks to Kiroku Eiga and Kanatasha.
It is part of the symposium Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko. Authorship and Gender Discourses (part II) taking place online on the 10th of September. The symposium brings together scholars discussing the work of Haneda, including a keynote presentation by Dr. Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano and a lecture on The Cherry Tree and Eco-thinking by Dr. Anne McKnight. For more detailed information: https://www.soas.ac.uk/jrc/
The symposium is held in partnership with the Japan Research Centre (SOAS), Birkbeck School of the Arts, BIMI (Birkbeck Institute for Moving Image), the Japan Foundation, Meiji Gakuin University, and supported by the Great Britain SASAKAWA Foundation.
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no. 236848.