Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko - CALL FOR PAPERS

Irene González-López Discussion

Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko:

Authorship and Gender Discourses (Part II)

 

CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline: August 11th)

 

Title: “Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko: Authorship and Gender Discourses” 

Date and Time: 16-17 September 2021

Online symposium

 

“Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko. Authorship and Gender Discourses” is an Anglo-Japanese research project which proposes a rediscovery (and discovery in the West) of one of the most important documentary makers from Japan, Haneda Sumiko. Haneda Sumiko (1926-) was a pioneer and prolific documentarist and one of few women working in non-fiction cinema in in post-war Japan. She started her career in the influential Iwanami Productions where she participated in the creation of many short and long documentary and PR works from the early years of the company in 1950s until the 1980s. Following her retirement from Iwanami, Haneda became an independent filmmaker co-founding her own production company with her husband Kudo Mitsuru and directing several award-winning documentaries until 2012.

This symposium belongs to a series of events organised around Haneda’s work. The first one took place in July 2021 and comprised of an online symposium and two online screenings of Haneda’s films (Ode to Mt. Hayachine, 1982, and Into the Picture Scroll-The Tale of Yamanaka Tokiwa, 2004). This second  event will take place in September, and will also include an online symposium on 16th / 17th  September, accompanied by online screenings (dates and films tbc) as well as physical screenings of Haneda Sumiko’s Women’s College in the Village (1957) and The Cherry Tree with Gray Blossoms (1977) in London in partnership with Open City Documentary Festival on 11th September 2021.

For the online symposium in September, we invite papers that discuss any aspects of Haneda Sumiko’s work including—but not limited to—the following topics:

 

- The role of women in Japanese society and culture.

- Representation of traditional Japan.

- Representation of a ‘Japan’ that is vanishing.

- Representation of a ‘Japan’ that is lost.

- Representation of Transnational Japan. A ‘Japan’ that is found outside Japan.

- Film representation of other arts.

- Representation of social issues.

- Documentary filmmaking in post-war Japan.

- Eco criticism and documentary

 

Please send a paper title, an abstract up to 250 words, and a short bio to haneda.sumiko.events@gmail.com by 11th August 2021

 

Organisers:

Dr Marcos Centeno (Birkbeck, University of London), Dr Irene González-López (Meiji Gakuin and Kingston University), Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) and Ricardo Matos (independent film curator).

 

This symposium is organised in partnership with the Japan Foundation, Birkbeck School of Arts, BIMI (Birkbeck Institute for Moving Image), SOAS Japan Research Centre, Open City Documentary Festival and Meiji Gakuin, and is also generously supported by Sasakawa Foundation.