Japanese Documentary Filmmaker Haneda Sumiko: Authorship and Gender Perspective

This chapter sheds light on women’s contribution to Japanese documentary cinema by examining the work of Haneda Sumiko (1926-), a pioneering female director whose trailblazing oeuvre remains hugely disregarded outside Japan. This chapter examines Haneda’s contribution to the development of new approaches to documentary filmmaking in postwar Japan in its intersection with women’s cinema. It shows that her heterogeneous filmography defies categorisation but exhibits a sustained concern with the representation of women and gender dynamics. Also drawing on Haneda’s writings and interviews, it explores her approaches to authorship and to labels related to female authorship complicating the use of the term ‘women’s cinema’.