The Documentary Cinema of Haneda Sumiko

This is the first academic book to provide a comprehensive survey of the work of Haneda Sumiko (1926-), the first woman to regularly direct documentaries in postwar Japan, by examining her major documentaries among the extensive filmography she developed over 60 years. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines-including film studies, gender studies, art history, eco-criticism and aging studies-this volume explores Haneda's depiction of critical issues in Japanese society, culture, history and nature. It showcases how her cinema provides a personal and reflective view on Japan's drastic transformations of the twentieth century, while her career also bore witness to changes taking place in the national cinema industry. It thus situates Haneda's oeuvre within the history of Japanese non-fiction film while offering new perspectives on questions of authorship and representation. Collectively, the chapters in this book make a case for Haneda to be recognized as a key figure in Japan's postwar documentary scene. Bridging gaps in research on both documentary studies and women filmmakers, this will be a valuable resource to scholars and students of film studies, Japanese studies, gender studies and art history, as well as to film curators and programmers.

Marcos Centeno-Martin is Associate Professor in Film and Media and Japanese Studies at the University of Valencia, Spain, and Research Associate for the Japan Research Centre at SOAS, UK. Irene González-López is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández currently works at The Japan Society in London and holds a PhD from University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain.

Haneda Sumiko's Oeuvre. An Introduction. GENDER DYNAMICS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN 1. Adding a Gender Perspective to Iwanami Documentaries: Women's College in the Village (1957). 2. Akiko (1985): Portrait of an Indomitable Force. CULTURAL HERITAGE 3. Resurrecting Dedicated Treasures of Horyuji-Temple (1971): a Cinematic Poem on Absence, Melancholy, and the Passage of Time. 4. A Gaze at the Ordinary People in Genre Paintings in the Late 16th Century (1967). 5. The Art/s and The Artist/s: Japanese Scroll Painting, Art Documentaries and Haneda Sumiko's Journey into a Picture Scroll. TRADITIONAL THEATRE ARTS 6. Kyogen (1969), the Mirror of Tradition. In Search of Identity through Performing Arts. 7. The Ontology of an Actor's Body: Documenting the Last Years of Kataoka Nizaemon's Life. NATURAL SCIENCES AND ECO-CINEMA 8. Haneda Sumiko Runs through a Cabbage Field: The Challenge of The Cabbage Butterfly (1968). 9. Visualizing Invisible Contamination: Haneda Sumiko's TV Programs on Environmental Pollution. 10. The Cherry Tree with Grey Blossoms (1977): An Ecology of the Everyday. HISTORY AND MEMORY OF 'VANISHING' JAPAN 11. Haneda's Beauty of the Ancients (1958) and Traumascapes: Re-membering Japanese Culture through Documentary Film. 12. Ode to Mt. Hayachine (1982). Between an End of an Era, and the Dawn of a New One: Capturing the Flow of History. 13. Haneda's Transnational Cinema: From Diasporic Cinema to Mnemonic Journey Films. The case of The Japanese Settlers... (2008). AGING 14. Confronting the Forgotten: Unveiling the World of the Elderly with Dementia through The World of Dementia (1986). 15. Gendered Citizenship, Democracy, and Welfare Reform in Getting Old without Anxiety (1990) and the Takanosu trilogy (1997-2006). 16. Critiquing Ideal Aging: Food, Care, and Detachment in Haneda Sumiko's All's Well that Ends Well (2006) and Other Documentaries. ANNEXES 17. Interview with Sato Tokue, Filmmaker, Haneda Sumiko's Personal Assistant and Manager of Kanatasha, Inc. 18. The Eye of the Documentarist. Interview with Director Haneda Sumiko. 19. Haneda Sumiko's Filmography.