Films

Description

*SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREMIERE*

In her second and final collaboration with screenwriter TANAKA Sumie, who wrote Forever a Woman, TANAKA Kinuyo revisits the archetype of the panpan, which she first explored in her debut feature Love Letter. Released a few years after the damning Prostitution Prevention Law of 1956, Girls of the Night centres around Kuniko, a young woman living in one of Japan’s newly established correctional facilities for former sex workers. Battling prejudice and overcoming demons from the past, she strives to construct a new life for herself.

In the 1960s, Japanese cinema started to evolve with the emergence of younger new wave directors such as OSHIMA Nagisa and SHINODA Masahiro, who were departing from the star-centred, plot-driven melodramas of the past, and towards more socially conscious stories. Girls of the Night sees TANAKA, while still drawing upon the tradition of women’s films, adopting a grittier style of filmmaking that displays an uncompromising critique of post-war society and a bold celebration of female kinship and tenacity.