Launched in 2009, the DMZ Docs has developed into the country’s largest festival of documentary films themed on “peace,” “communication” and “life.” The festival has the unique concept of combining the documentary genre with the demilitarized zone, the world’s last remaining symbol of the Cold War.
The Special Focus of this year has the opportunity to reflect on the issue of the ‘Comfort women for Japanese soldiers’ through the documentary, which has become the big social issue due to the Korean Comfort Women agreement at the end of the year 2015. It presents the documentary films by Japanese Filmmakers, devoted to the Comfort Women such as Karayuki-San, the Making of a Prostitute by Imamura Shôhei, Okinawa no Harumoni by Yamatani Tetsuo and Living with the “Memories” by Doi Toshikuni. And also present two documentaries that depict the testimonies of Taiwanese Comfort Women and their current life of healing the trauma, and The Silence that was made by Park Su-nam, a second-generation Korean Japanese director in China. Trough all these films, we could not only pay attention to the voice of the Comfort Women as victims in the countries of Asia, but also confirm that the women’s experiences of war and violence are limited to the problem of the individual countries but are connected with each other crossing the borders of the countries in Asia. Along with screening them, the Special Focus will hold a forum to examine the collective memory and representation of the Korean Comfort women for Japanese soldiers and the past and present of the representation of Comfort women in Asia. In addition Peasant revolutionary dynamics, Pepper and Rifle, a documentary that reveals that Japan suppressed Peasant revolutionary army in the process of colonization of Joseon, was received the special production support of the DMZ Doc Fund and will also be screened in the Special Focus.
Living with the “Memories” by Doi Toshikuni
Karayuki-San, the Making of a Prostitute by Imamura Shohei
Song of the Reed by Wu Hsiu-Ching
DMZ
DMZ International Documentary Film Festival Official Site
Justice For Comfort Women 