I went to the International Women Make
Sister Waves Film Festival, which was held on November 14 and 15, 2015, in Toyonaka
City, Osaka. Commemorating the 45th anniversary of women’s liberation movement,
the forth Film Festival was entitled “We’re Still in the Midst of Lib!” and a
total of seven documentary films were screened in two days. A special talk by
the women in their 70s about “the 45 Years of Women’s Lib—Never-ending Journey
on the Road of Lib—was also held, as well as discussions after screenings. The
Festival had other sorts of festivities, including panel exhibition showing the
women’s lib movement in Osaka and a party celebrating the movement’s 45th
anniversary.
The screening program of the Festival
included the premiere shows of three overseas films as
follows: Spanish and Turkish films documenting feminists movements which
spread in respective countries from the end of 1970s to 1980s, and a Canadian film,
Lesbiana: A Parallel Revolution*, which
reviewed the radical lesbians’ movement generated from the women’s lib movement
in the 1970s mainly through the interviews of those radical feminists. A
Japanese film Looking for Fumiko represented a dialogue between the women engaged in the 1970s lib
movement and younger generations. The other Japanese film 30
years' of Sisterhood : Women in the 1970s Women's Liberation Movement in Japan was composed of narratives of twelve women who had been involved in the lib
movement in those days and have been living a life for liberation still now.
Watching these films, I felt that I could vividly
re-experience the spread of various women’s movements simultaneously generated in various places of the world and
the power of solidarity among individual women who spontaneously took
part in the movements to let their voices heard. That was because the films
were directed by women who aimed to listen carefully to voices of those women engaged in the movements. Even though their problems and
difficulties were different from ours, we, who are living a contemporary life somehow
with uneasiness, could receive positive messages and hopes from each of those
films.
Above all, the words which I found most inspiring
were those uttered by a woman in the Spanish film about La Sal in Barcelona. “For
me, ‘feminism’ is uncomfortable behaviorism,” she said, “because you could never
keep away from feminism as it involves the questions of your own life and
identity, while you could forget about the missiles (she means other kinds of
social movements) you would not take home to your bed.” Yes! I agreed to those words with much empathy.
Another impressive phrase was spoken by a women
who appeared in Lesbiana: A Parallel
Revolution. She said “I think it necessary that we should be connected
through recognition of our heterogeneity rather than homogeneity." The linkage
based on heterogeneity might not be attainable particularly in Japan where homogeneity
tends to be most highly regarded. The importance of heterogeneity, however, should
be better appreciated in our actual activities and movements today.
Original article written by NAKAMURA Natsuko
Translated by FUKUOKA.A.A
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