‘‘Female Director’: discourses and practices in contemporary Japan

González-López, Irene and Armendariz-Hernandez, Alejandra (2022) ‘‘Female Director’: discourses and practices in contemporary Japan. In: Desser, D. (ed.) A Companion to Japanese Cinema. Wiley Blackwell Companions to National Cinemas. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 421-445. ISBN 9781118955345.

Abstract

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the number of female directors in Japan has notably increased, permeating all types of genres and cinematic categories. This is the first time that a substantial number of women are steadily directing films, instead of disappearing after one or two productions. In this flourishing environment, which marks a turning point in Japanese women’s filmmaking, the label “female director” (josei eiga kantoku or josei kantoku) remains controversial. This chapter examines the concept of the “female director” as a discursive category constructed and circulated in the different, yet interconnected, contexts of contemporary Japanese cinema. Complementing studies focused on the textual analysis of films directed by women and their conditions of production, exhibition and reception, our aim is to shift the attention to the label itself to clarify how the term “female director” is used, perceived, and justified or dismissed by different agents implicated in the Japanese film industry. In particular, we will explore case studies from women’s film festivals in Tokyo and Nagoya, publications by women’s grassroots groups (Yoshida et al., 2001; Kotōda et al., 2004-2015), and film journals to juxtapose their conceptions of “female director” with industrial data (MPPAJ, 2021) and the opinions of actual Japanese women filmmakers extracted from a survey we circulated in 2019.

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