By Julia Kim

In the 80 years of Academy Awards history only three women filmmakers have been nominated for best director award for a feature film (Lina Wertmuller in 1977, Jane Campion in 1994, and Sofia Coppola in 2004). According to the 2007 celluloid ceiling report, women comprised six percent of all directors working on the top 250 films of 2007, a decline of one percentage point since 2006. This figure is almost half the percentage of women directors working in 2000 when women accounted for eleven percent of all directors.

In the category of documentary films however, (although there are no statistical facts to account for the actual percentage of women directors), perusing film festival programs reveals far greater number of women documentary filmmakers. Whether it’s based on a history of being attracted to documentary filmmaking for it’s potential to educate and inform, or because it’s not as competitive with lower budgets and funds being distributed by women, it is where women are thriving and being recognized for their achievements.

More women filmmakers are traveling abroad, extending their eyes and ears to issues in war torn countries, raising conversations on the hidden, repressed, and unknown, and giving voice to the deeply personal.

This year, the Asian American International Film Festival will present three different documentaries exploring politics and humanity at different scales: Ann Kaneko (AGAINST THE GRAIN) unravels the tangled web of displacement and oppression that agitate Peruvian citizens. Kaneko focuses on those who fight for the freedom of expression and the artists who put those expressions into motion in the public sphere. Risa Morimoto (WINGS OF DEFEAT) presents an evocative documentary that boldly confronts the popular notion of the kamikaze as fanatical patriots. Morimoto nimbly interweaves personal experiences against the larger historical narrative of World War II to paint a compelling portrait of the moral burdens these men were forced to bear. Mirjam van Veelen (MEGUMI) part documentary, part drama—travels to the coastal town of Niigata, to revisit the site of thirteen-year-old Megumi Yokota’s disappearance; a young schoolgirl who was snatched from the coast of Japan and taken by ship to North Korea.

These three female filmmakers discuss their experiences of taking their cameras abroad to portray the difficulties of reckoning with political and social distress, and specifically how politics are played out in interconnected notions of masculinity, nationalism, and resistance.

Ann Kaneko: What was the intention in making the film? It seems like this informs a lot of how a film is constructed.

Risa Morimoto: I found out my uncle trained to be a kamikaze in the Spring 2005. I was stunned that I never knew this about him; I just assumed that all the kamikaze were suicidal fanatics.

It got me thinking that if I still believed these propagandistic images then there were plenty of others who felt the same way. Then the research started…I didn't know what kind of film I would have until we were in the editing room.

If we can all do our part to help change stereotypes then we've made a contribution...
But it ended up being much more than that...really a personal transformation not only for me, but for many of my subjects as well. I hoped audiences would walk away asking themselves, “How so we define our so-called ‘enemy’?”

Mirjam Van Veelan: I read an article in NRC Handelsblad, a Dutch newspaper published in September 2002, on the day the North Korean leader confessed to the kidnapping of thirteen innocent Japanese citizens. I was struck by Megumi Yokota's story because she was the youngest one who was taken. Along with the article a photo was published of Megumi being thirteen years old. It was the last photo her father took of her, a couple of months before her disappearance. She looked straight into the camera and thus twenty years later she looked straight at me. I decided I wanted to make a film for her and about her.

CineVue: What do you identify as particular sensibilities of women filmmakers? And how did going abroad shift that experience?

AK: Perhaps we, as women, are more attracted to questions that are truly personal...to go back to the old adage that "the personal is political." I got a fulbright to make a film about Fujimori, which became impossible because he was gone by the time I got to Peru. Hence, I started to look at issues that concerned me as an artist. I fundamentally wondered whether I would be a different artist had I been living in Peru. So it became about issues of freedom of expression that affect all of us everywhere. I think that all of our films have started from a particular question that motivated us to proceed.

RM: Mirjam, how difficult was it for you to get access to the family? Do you speak Japanese? There is another doc—ABDUCTION...which I am sure you have heard about—what challenges arose from that film circulating in as well? I ran into some similar problems when trying to sell my film.

MV: I actually met them through the Dutch journalist, Hans van der Lugt. He was the chairman of the Foreign Press Club in Tokyo and invited me to join a press conference about North Korean dissidents where I met Megumi’s father. The next day I found an interpreter and settled a meeting with the parents at their house. I was pretty nervous, because I had never met parents who had lost their child before. I wondered if they would and could talk about this enormous loss. Mr and Mrs Yokota however, were very kind and eager to tell me all about their life-story.

I think this is the weirdest project I have ever working on. Two other filmmakers were quicker than me. [Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan’s ABDUCTION: THE MEGUMI YOKOTA STORY (2006) and Melissa K. Lee’s KIDNAPPED! THE JAPAN-NORTH KOREA ABDUCTION CASES (2005).] It was scary to see their films, still having to make mine, but I was still convinced I could add new things, tell the story from another perspective, more emotional.

AK: The film feels like a suspense drama. An intriguing choice since it seems like you were interested in the suspension of time: revealing how the family felt and the passage of time. Did your choice to make it that way result from the fact that you wanted to make it different from the other films?

MV: No, from the beginning, I wanted to make a personal film rather than a political or historical film. Two things were important for me: I wanted to visualize the parent’s love for Megumi. Secondly I wanted—in case Megumi ever might have the chance to see the film—to show her parents and not people that are pawns in a political game, running from meeting to meeting.
The problem was that my ideas were quite difficult to get financed. People were afraid the combination of fiction and documentary wouldn't work because the subject itself is already so dramatic. Would an audience accept any fiction?

AK: I might add that there are other films about Fujimori, which did make it difficult for me to get funding as well. But those other films are very different.

RM: Ann, there were times when you were in some tense situations...how do you think that affected the filmmaking as a woman? How do you think it would have been different if you were a man?

AK: It's funny. I've been in a lot of crazy situations as a cameraperson.

MV: Were you ever afraid?

AK: I was on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan; in labor disputes and, of course, with the crowd attacking us; in Peru that is. I don't think I'm that afraid and the fact that I am a small woman makes me much less threatening to the other people.

RM: So you think they are more willing to say how they feel on camera?

AK: Maybe, I'm naive, but because I'm not very threatening, I think some of the tension is somewhat diffused. I think people really project back what energy you put out. So, yes, in some ways people are perhaps freer to say what they think.

In the plaza, with the crowd in Lima, my friend, who is Japanese Peruvian was much more upset than I was because it really felt like a personal attack on her.

RM: Being a Japanese American woman for my film was definitely an asset. I think that the former Kamikaze were willing to tell me things they couldn't tell their own families partially, being a woman, being Japanese yet not (outsider-insider perspective)...

MV: A camera may help, but the main thing in making the films, as we did/do, is that the people you film need to feel that you empathize with them.

AK: The thing you learn as a camera person is to just keep the camera rolling….

RM: Right…like you said Ann, feels less threatening, therefore, a bit easier to establish a sense of trust. Maybe that's why we see more women doc filmmakers?

AK: A lot of one's access is really about the personal rapport that you establish with people. With another doc [I worked on], about undocumented workers in Japan, it was definitely an asset to be an outsider, but one who spoke Japanese, and could relate to the foreigners.
With the film in Peru, I personally feel like I identified with all of the characters in my film, which gave us a common ground.

RM: Ann, how was your film received in Peru and yours, Mirjam, in Japan?

AK: I haven't shown the film in Peru yet. It was rejected from the main festival there. Probably a comment on how it could be perceived as being controversial….

MV: Unfortunately it hasn’t screened in Japan yet. The parents though were very happy with the final result.

AK: I'm trying to go to Peru in September. The artists like the film, and Peruvian artists here love the film.

MV: How was it working with your protagonists Risa?

AK: Risa, you have some incredible interviews with them, and they really opened up. That’s not easy in Japan.

RM: I was pretty shocked...especially because one of the guys criticizes the emperor, which is still so taboo in Japan.

AK: Having filmed in Japan, I find the Japanese quite candid with outsiders. And everyone wants a platform to speak out on things that trouble them.

RM: But it was somewhat of a relief for the general public. We ended up having a theatrical release in 23 cities. The DVD is now available nationwide and will be broadcast on NHK this summer.

AK: Bravo on the distribution!

RM: I never would have imagined it...but as folks have told me, they said "this is what we thought privately for years. Thank you for making this movie because we never would have been able to.”

MV: Yes that sounds really good, and the film is beautiful.

RM: Thanks. Yeah, we are excited...especially because this is not taught or discussed in Japan. They still think of them as one-dimensional self-sacrificing heroes. I really enjoyed both of your films as well...

We are not from any of the countries that we filmed in ...what were some of your challenges?

AK: Especially, because I was trying to present a history of the country, it was tricky trying to present an abbreviated one that also did justice to what really happened. I had to ultimately choose to focus on what is important to the story of my film. Some Peruvians may take issue...but I think it is pretty accurate. And I have heard many Peruvians thank me for telling the story of a very difficult time for them.

MV: If challenges means difficulties, I think language was one of them. I had to work with an interpreter all the time. She was very good though, and helped me with the research till the moment of filming. I also didn't feel I could speak out against North Korea or Japan; and Japanese people wanted me to do that sometimes.

RM: That's exactly what we faced for Wings...explain everything that led up to the Pacific War in 45 seconds...

AK: What is most challenging, is trying to present a story with enough context for both a Peruvian and an international audience.

RM: Even if you don't know anything about Peruvian politics, you engaged in it nicely with these personal stories that it didn't feel like a history lesson....

AK: Or hopefully insult a Peruvian audience who already knows what happened.... Probably "bore" is a better word.

MV: I guess I misunderstood the word “challenging.” For me, the most important was to show that the hope of Megumi’s parents, that their daughter [Megumi] is still alive, is stronger than reality.

CineVue: What are you all currently working on?

AK: I feel like all of my films are so enmeshed with my life, that all of my points of reference are pegged to these projects. Perhaps the way people chart their lives through the development of their children.

RM: I’m in the research stages for a feature (narrative this time...just to keep things interesting...) but we are also still actively working on getting WINGS OF DEFEAT out there...it takes years. Heh…these are our babies.

MV: I have this idea to make a portrait of the Japanese girl who plays the role of Megumi. She is the daughter of a buddhist monk. I would like to tell her story of growing up with this tradition in a modern society.

AK: I’m trying to figure out distribution on AGAINST THE GRAIN. I'm collaborating on an art installation with a Berlin-based artist. I am also trying to get started on a tv pilot. And there are a couple of short films I've been working on.

CineVue: Any advice for prospective filmmakers?

RM: If you have a story that is burning inside of you, you have to tell it. “No” is just a word...stay focused and it will get done. But understand that you will have to live with the film for years so make sure you LOVE the subject.

AK: I agree with Risa. And make sure that you find good partners and allies to travel this journey with you.

MV: I can't work on more than one project at the same time. Just give everything that’s in you for one project.

RM: There have been movies made on all our topics so it's important to know how your film differs from the others...because people will ask. And when it comes time to sell the film, it's good to have that understanding....
Good partners are critical...but that goes for any business or venture.
It's a great time to be a filmmaker...technology has never been easier. Making movies has gotten easier. Just because there are fewer women filmmakers out there, does not mean that we have fewer stories to tell. Quite the contrary I think, and it will be exciting to see where the industry is in the next ten years.

MV: I think filmmaking is the best way to grow, learn about life and people, and try to share that with your audience.

AK: I don't find being a woman an impediment at all--rather, it makes for a good fight! And with the plethora of technology, it IS challenging to figure out how the work gets out there. I do like filmmaking, but I would like to find a way that's more sustainable. It never gets boring, that's for sure!

MV: I would like a way that’s more sustainable too, because it is hard sometimes to make your living. Still I can't stop doing it...

RM: Yes you learn about things you never would otherwise and meet people that you would never meet...lifelong bonds. For WINGS OF DEFEAT, we actually had US vets who survived the sinking of their ship, go to Japan with us for the film's release and genuinely reconcile their feelings. Many WWII vets still harbor a lot of hatred towards the Japanese, so it's still a challenge for folks. There was hugging, crying...it was amazing. It's truly life-transforming...the power of film.