A pioneer of documentaries in Japan, Sumiko Haneda, 96, is also a pioneer of female filmmaking in her country. Born in Dalian, a Chinese city in Manchuria then under Japanese domination, from 1957 to 2013 she directed more than eighty films on subjects as varied as old age, the daily life of ordinary people or artists and the traditional arts. “A lot of people have seen my documentaries on agingshe says. A movement has been created to think about this question. I make films because I believe that documentaries have this power to raise awareness. »
Her conviction about the role of documentary owes a lot to her time, after the repatriation of her family at the end of the Second World War, to Jiyu Gakuen, a school for girls founded by Motoko Hani (1873-1957), the first Japanese woman journalist. with the credo: “People who feel something have a responsibility to act. »
Once graduated, Sumiko Haneda chose to work in 1950 for the brand new Iwanami production company, created by the progressive publisher Iwanami Shoten, to support educational documentary projects for cinema and television. One of the young in-house directors was Susumu Hani, grandson of Motoko and future figure of the Japanese New Wave. Sumiko Haneda works with him as an assistant director.
Personal aspirations
The experience acquired enabled him to direct, in 1957, his first noticed documentary, The school for women in the village. Responding to a commission from the Ministry of Education, this film shot in a village in the department of Shiga (West) gives the floor to women and children evoking their daily lives. Her work at Iwanami led her to collaborate with the National Theater and the National Museum of Tokyo, but limited her more personal aspirations, which were also hampered by her status as a woman in a very masculine universe. “When I started making films, there were less than five active female directors. Once the recognition came, the distinction between men and women disappeared. »
She benefits from the support of other committed women, such as Etsuko Takano, who had chosen to study in France, at the Institute of Higher Cinematographic Studies, because she considered it impossible for a woman to become a director in Japan. Appointed in 1970 to head the arthouse cinema Iwanami Hall – which closed its doors in July –, Mme Takano presents in 1977 the very poetic Cherry tree with gray flowers by Sumiko Haneda, work on impermanence, carried out through the daily life of a village articulated around an ancient cherry tree.
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