“I want to promote the awareness of Japan and Japanese studies … to further the goal of the internationalization of our campus,” said Dr. Mahua Bhattacharya, associate professor of Japanese at Elizabethtown College. She is doing just that through the 11th-annual Japan Foundation Film Series.
The Series began Sept. 30 with the showing of “Campaign,” directed by Kazuhiro Soda. The 120-minute film centers on an election campaign in Kawasaki City, Japan and follows a candidate who has no political experience through his campaign trail. The film was awarded The Peabody Award in 2008 for its excellence and the Best Documentary Award at the Belgrade International Documentary Film Festival in 2008.
I want to promote the awareness of Japan and Japanese studies …”
Next in the four-part film series, shown Wednesday, Oct. 7, was “Hafu the Film,” which follows the unfolding journey of discovery into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan,
“Children of the Woods,” a documentary about a free-form Japanese nursery school in which children are permitted to get get covered in mud, eat wild nuts and interact with animals, will be shown Wednesday, Oct. 14; and “Lonely Swallows,” which explores the struggles of Japanese-Brazilian children living in Japan, concludes the series Wednesday, Oct. 21.
All films, shown at 7 p.m. in Gibble Auditorium, are free and open to the public. They are spoken in Japanese, with English subtitles and, after each film, there is a discussion of reactions to the film.
The Japan Foundation, a government agency that promotes Japanese culture abroad, chose these four films because they felt they demonstrate an important aspect of Japanese society.
“Since these are documentary films, there is nothing fictional about them’ said Bhattacharya who has been sponsoring the film series for the past decade. “It will allow people to engage with differences that Japan has, helping them to not only understand the mindset of a different culture but also gain a deeper understanding of their own culture.” Bhattacharya said she is excited about the film festival and hopes the community takes this opportunity to broaden their knowledge of the Japanese culture.