Women's Cinema - Asia

Asia

Mira Nair, Aparna Sen, Deepa Mehta, Gurinder Chadha, Manju Borah are among the best known Indian women filmmakers, partly because of commercial success of their films. However there are a number of other Indian women filmmakers who have made some remarkable films that address a variety of issues. Other noteworthy Indian women filmmakers include Nisha Ganatra, Sonali Gulati, Indu Krishnan, Eisha Marjara, Pratibha Parmar, Nandini Sikand, Ish Amitoj Kaur and Shashwati Talukdar.

In Japan for a long time Kinuyo Tanaka was the only woman to make feature films. She was able to do this against fierce resistance because she enjoyed a status as star actress. Using genre conventions her films showed women "with a humorous affection rare in Japanese cinema of the period" (Philip Kemp).

Currently, the best-known women filmmaker of Japan may be Naomi Kawase; 2007 she won the Grand Prix in Cannes, while Memoirs of a fig tree, the directorial debut of well-known actrice Kaori Momoi, saw the light of the day in 2006. The sociocritical adventure film K-20: Legend of the Mask by Shimako Sato's was a breakthrough into a bigger budget; it starred Takeshi Kaneshiro and was released all over the world.

Similarly in South Korea, Im Soon-rye landed a box-office-hit with Forever the Moment, while So Yong Kim got some attention for her film In Between Days and Lee Suk-Gyung made the women-themed and subtly feminist The Day After.

One of the important fifth-generation filmmakers of China is Ning Ying, who won several prices for her films; in contrast to the controversy over some of her sixth-generation colleagues such as Zhang Yimou, who got accused of having sold out their ideals, Ning Ying has gone on to realize small independent films with themes strongly linked to Chinese daily life, therefore also being a link between the 5th and 6th generation. The Sixth Generation has seen a growing number of women filmmakers such as Liu Jiayin, best known for her film Oxhide, and Xiaolu Guo; in 2001 Li Yu caused quite a stir with her lesbian love story Fish and Elephant.

The most famous women filmmaker from Hong Kong is undoubtedly Ann Hui, who has made a wide array of films ranging from the wuxia genre to drama; Ivy Ho and Taiwanese Sylvia Chang also are known names in the Hong Kong industry, while in Taiwan queer filmmaker Zero Chou has gotten acclaim on festivals around the world.

Yasmin Ahmad (1958-2009) is considered one of the most important directors of Malaysia; originally a commercial director, she switched to feature films relatively late and gained international acclaim while also stirring controversy among conservatives in her home country.

In Pakistan, where film industry is not very big, some prominent and brilliant directors are working. Conventional film industry has directors like Sangeeta and Shamim Ara who are making films with feminist themes. Specially on Sangeeta's credit there are some issue-based films. Now some new directors from television industry are also coming towards the medium of films. Sabiha Sumar and Mehreen Jabbar are two new names for films in Pakistan and are making brilliant films. Both of these directors has made films which are not only issue based addressing national issues but also these films have won international awards at different film festivals.

Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, a writer and a director, is probably Iran's best known and certainly most prolific female filmmaker. She has established herself as the elder stateswoman of Iranian cinema with documentaries and films dealing with social pathology. Contemporary Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935—1967) was also a filmmaker. Her best known film is The House is black (Khane siah ast, 1962), a documentary of a leper colony in the north of Iran. Samira Makhmalbaf directed her first film The Apple when she was only 17 years old and won Cannes Jury Prize in 2000 for her following film The Blackboard.