T0137: Haneda Sumiko’s documentaries: historical memory, women’s voices and cinematic language

T0137

Haneda Sumiko’s documentaries: historical memory, women’s voices and cinematic language

Convenor:: Irene Gonzalez-Lopez (Birkbeck, University of London)
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Discussant:: Jennifer Coates (University of Sheffield)

Format:: Panel

Section:: Visual Arts

Short Abstract

We explore the documentary cinema of Haneda Sumiko, a trailblazing woman director whose films critically documented a changing Japan. We discuss her approach to historical memory, to women’s history and voices, and her cinematic language that conveys a respectful yet critical gaze.

Long Abstract

Within Japan’s rich film culture, documentary cinema and women filmmakers are yet to receive the attention they deserve. In the intersection of these two areas one finds Haneda Sumiko, a trailblazing director who debuted in 1957 and made over eighty documentaries across her career of sixty years. We argue for Haneda to be recognised as an important figure to world cinema, and for her films to be acknowledged as valuable testimonies of a changing Japan—a Japan that still needs to come to terms with its past and with the image it holds of itself as a nation and a society.

Showcasing the diversity of Haneda’s documentaries but also the meaningful links that emerge among them, this panel discusses historical memory, women’s voices and cinematic language in Haneda’s career as independent filmmaker.

“Transnational Memories in Haneda Sumiko’s Japanese Settlers in Manchuria (2008)” examines Haneda’s depiction of the long-neglected voices of the children and women of the Japanese settlers left behind in Manchukuo after Japan’s surrender. As Haneda was born in occupied Dalian in 1926, this film offers a personal and political statement that must be contextualized against the recent Memory Struggles in Asia.

“(Auto)biography as women’s genre in the independent cinema of Haneda Sumiko” explores Haneda use of the biographical genre as a tool for women’s history aiming to preserve women’s stories and to leave a visual trace of their bodies, political commitment, and everyday life, through the analysis of films such as In the Beginning, Woman was the Sun: The Life of Hiratsuka Raicho (2001).

“The cinematic language of Haneda Sumiko: trust, respect, and sympathy” delves into her work also as scriptwriter and editor. Through a close examination of the sound and image editing of her documentary Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer (1985), this paper seeks to demonstrate Haneda’s sympathetic yet critical approach to her (women) subjects.

The panel presents some of the key results of our funded research on Haneda which began in 2020, and has produced international collaborations, film screenings, the creation of English subtitles for Haneda’s films, and several publications, including an edited volume (Routledge, 2026).

Abstract in Japanese (if needed)

Accepted papers

Transnational Memories in Haneda Sumiko’s "Japanese Settlers in Manchuria" (2008)

marcos centeno

Paper short abstract

This paper examines Haneda’s depiction of the long-neglected voices of the children and women of the Japanese settlers left behind in Manchukuo after Japan’s surrender. This paper contextualises Haneda's film within the recent Memory Struggles in Asia.

Paper long abstract

This paper seeks to re-examine the history of Japanese colonisation in Manchuria through the long-neglected voices of the children of the settlers who travelled to Manchukuo during the final years of the war and were left behind after the Japan’s surrender, as they are captured by Haneda Sumiko’s full-length documentary The Japanese Settlers to the Manchuria and Inner Mongolia of Mainland China (Aa manmōkaitaku-dan, 2008). This work is contextualised within the recent Memory Struggles that have proliferated in recent years in East Asia. Through the testimonies documented in the film, it will be discussed the ambiguous position of the Japanese settlers in the colonial enterprise: while they were part of the violent militarist structures in Manchukuo, they also ended up being victims of them. The topic is addressed within the broader revival of the memory concerning the Japanese settlers in Manchuria: first, it considers the involvement of the former settlers in a recent trial that took place in Tokyo aimed at establishing the Japanese government’s responsibility for the so-called “Chinese residual orphans” (Chūgoku zanryū minashigo); second, it examines the connections between the former settlers and the Chinese community at the Japanese Friendship Park, built by the Chinese authorities in Fangzheng. Why were these settlers recognised as victims by Chinese institutions before being acknowledged as such by Japan? Why most of the victims were women? Why were those who managed to repatriate decades later stigmatised in Japanese society? The presentation will cast light into these questions by focusing on historically neglected voices in this tragedy: the testimonies of women and the former children of the settlements. The research presented here has been carried out under the project TRAMEVIC (Transnational Memories in East Asian Visual Culture) funded by the Valencia Region Research Council Ref. CIGE/2023/066.

(Auto)biography as women’s genre in the independent cinema of Haneda Sumiko

Alejandra Armendariz-Hernandez (University Rey Juan Carlos)

The cinematic language of Haneda Sumiko: trust, respect, and sympathy

Irene Gonzalez-Lopez (Birkbeck, University of London)

Paper short abstract

I examine Haneda’s cinematic language as director, scriptwriter and editor in Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer (1985). I show how Haneda allowed Akiko Kanda to have a voice in this documentary, while conveying through the editing of sound and image a sympathetic yet critical approach to her reality.

Paper long abstract

Haneda’s authorial voice has often been described as sympathetic yet critical. Prestigious programmer Takano Etsuko, for instance, described it as a “sharp but warm gaze”. This paper seeks to unpack Haneda’s cinematic language as director, scriptwriter and editor of documentary films to identify what specific elements and strategies may convey this sense of sympathy combined with a critical approach. To this purpose, I analyse the sound, mise-en-scène and editing of her documentary Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer (Akiko, aru dansā no shōzō, 1985), an intimate portrayal of dancer and choreographer Akiko Kanda, who gave her entire life to the art of dancing while heavily relying on others to take care of her. While the film is dominated by Akiko’s voice over, I argue that Haneda’s cinematography and editing convey sympathy and respect for Akiko, but also critically depict the impact of her indomitable passion for dancing. The result is a cinematic conversation between director and film subject. It is only through a relationship based on trust—which Haneda considered essential to documentary filmmaking—that the director was able to convey Akiko’s voice and her own “sharp but warm gaze”. Evidence of this trust is the second film that Haneda will make of Akiko in 2012, documenting the terminal illness of this charismatic dancer full of contradictions. This paper showcases the rich cinematic language of Haneda Sumiko. Ultimately, it proposes an analytical framework for the study of documentary cinema that allows us to trace a director’s approach to authorship and to their relationship with their films’ subjects in the cinematic language of their work.