“Female Director”

Abstract

In the 1980s only a handful of women were regularly directing films in Japan. While most studies of women directors focus on textual analyses and/or production and reception contexts, this chapter focuses on “female director” as a discursive concept constructed and circulated within different, yet interconnected, contexts of contemporary Japanese cinema. Industrial, technological, and social changes may have weakened the “celluloid ceiling” that traditionally existed within the Japanese studio system. The chapter sheds light on how the label is being used, perceived, and justified or dismissed by different agents. Using extensive original data gathered from the industry, the chapter considers case studies from women's film festivals in Japan, publications by women's grassroots groups, and film journals to juxtapose their conceptions of “female director” with the opinions of actual Japanese women filmmakers. At the turn of the twenty-first century, a range of publications on women's cinema have vindicated the gendered category of “female director” in Japan.