Speaker: Nanako Kurihara, Producer/Director
Date: November 2, 2013 (Saturday)
15:00-18:00 (note time change)
(Dinner after the session at a Thai/Balinese restaurant. Reservations
required by October 27. Contact fujimotodonna@@gmail.com)
Venue: Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center,
5th floor (1 minute walk from JR Takatsuki Station)
Tel.0726-85-3721
http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/db/kurasu/images/koryu.gif
Fee: Free for SIETAR, GALE SIG members, and students;
500 yen for non-members
Language: English (questions & answers in Japanese and English)
We are very fortunate to have Nanako Kurihara, the filmmaker of an exceptional documentary about the Japanese women’s liberation movement in the 1970s. “Ripples of Change” combines powerful political analysis with a deeply personal and passionate story. In the 1980s Kurihara left her homeland, frustrated by the lack of interesting roles for women in Japan. In New York, she met a Japanese woman who had been involved in the women’s liberation movement in Japan, and this started her own journey. Kurihara returned to Japan and brought together interviews with veterans of the movement, fascinating archival footage, and her own personal impressions. The film explores the meaning of the liberation movement, the factors that motivated it, and the effect it has had on people’s attitudes.
“Ripples of Change” was screened internationally at film festivals, universities, women’s centers, and museums. It has been broadcast on foreign public television stations, on PBS in the United States and SBS in Australia. It has been used in classrooms internationally at colleges and universities. The film was partially funded by the Japan Foundation, Hoso Bunka Foundation, Tokyo Women’s Fund, NY State Council for the Arts, and Astraea Foundation. “Ripples of Change” is an excellent resource for the study of global feminism, women’s roles, and Japanese society.
Nanako Kurihara graduated from Waseda University with a BA in Political Science. After working as a magazine editor, she moved to New York where she started to make documentaries. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from Performance Studies at New York University. More recently Kurihara made the film, “A Grandpa from Brazil,” which is about a first-generation immigrant’s personal look at Japanese migration to Brazil and the return migration of Japanese-Brazilians to Japan. It takes an honest look at the economic crisis that face Japanese Brazilians in Japan.