In November 2019, Another Gaze travelled to Japan to interview sixteen women filmmakers. For our fifth issue, we are seeking essay submissions to accompany the publication of several of these interviews. These essays will be translated into Japanese and will be published as an insert for Japanese readers.

Another Gaze is a printed and online journal, founded as a sustained and evolving forum for discussion around women and the moving image. Our issues – distributed worldwide – contain essays, reviews, fragments and interviews on narrative, documentary and experimental film work, and cover women as filmmakers, spectators and filmic subjects. We are also keen to accept feminist writing on areas including disability, race, sexuality and class.

We’re open to all forms of writing from all kinds of writers and would be pleased to receive more experimental pitches. The writing we publish is thorough and research-based but not academic or opaque in style.

NB: We welcome cross-national comparisons and analysis of films notmade by women. We are particularly, though not exclusively, interested in the following subject areas:

• (Women’s) film festivals / women programmers (eg. Etsuko Takano) / directors working in non-women’s film festivals (eg. Pia, Yamagata) / the history of programming of films by women and queers at the ‘major’ festivals / (women’s) film collectives
• Transnational circulation of the Japanese (woman) image
• The ‘pink cinema’ as exhibition space
• Microcinemas / rep theatres / film clubs
• Women film critics and theorists in Japan (eg. Osaki Midori)
• Women screen writers / women writers adapted to the screen
• Gender and the production pipeline (eg. Movement from actress to director in ‘pink’) / Japanese studio system & labour dynamics
• Fan cultures / grassroots film financing
• Gender, sexuality and pink (pinku) film. Non-studio filmmaking & independence.
• Japanese women filmmakers living and working abroad (eg. New York in the ‘60s, women video artist in Europe, Japanese women in Korean and other Asian countries)
• Women in silent cinemas / women as benshi, eg. Ōmori Kumiko
• Photography (and filmmaking) / the ‘girly’ photo movement / photographers who went on to make films
• Woman’s liberation (uman ribu) in and on film / generational feminism / the overlap or non-overlap of waves with other countries
• Censorship / forced ‘softening’ of gender and sexuality on film
• Data-driven studies about women working in media industries in Japan
• Recent representations of the figure of the ‘comfort woman’/empire/colonial history on film
• Marginalised identities and locations: Zainichi and Nikkei identities, Okinawa status, Ainu culture, Burakumin people
• Women’s response to Fukushima disaster and 3/11 (2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami)
• Political/radical filmmaking and gender non-conforming actors (eg. Shinnosuke Ikehata [Peter])
• Girl gangs/good for nothings
• Mothers and motherhood on screen (eg. Kawase Naomi’s documentaries; mothers in the work of Terayama Shuji)
• Fashion in and on film (eg. Mika Ninagawa)
• Queer Icons & Divas/Cinematic Expressions of LGBTQ+ life

**Some filmmakers we are keen to cover: ** Akiko Ashizawa, Akiko Ohku, Atsugi Taka, Aya Igashi, Ayaka Katô, Chiaki Kon, Chie Yamayoshi, Chihiro Ikeda, Chiho Aoshima, Haruka Komori, Hisako Matsui, Hitomi Kamanaka, Kaori Momoi, Kaori Oda, Kaze Shindo, Kei Fujiwara, Keiko Tsuruoka, Kinuyo Tanaka, Kyoko Miyake, Kyōko Aizome, Lisa Takeba, Maiko Endo, Mai Tominaga, Mako Idemitsu, Makoto Moriwaki, Mami Sunada, Mana Yasuda, Mari Asato, Mariko Miyagi, Mariko Mori, Mari Okada, Mari Terashima, Mika Ninagawa, Mipo O, Miwa Nishikawa, Momoko Ando, Momoko Fukuda, Nami Iguchi, Naoko Ogigami, Naoko Yamada, Naomi Kawase, Natsuka Kusano, Rei Hayama, Rie Matsumoto, Rumi Tama, Sachi Hamano, Sachiko Hidari, Satoko Yokohama, Sawako Kabuki, Sayo Yamamoto, Shigeko Kubota, Shimako Sato, Shiori Kazama, Soni Kum, Sumiko Haneda, Tamaki Matsuoka, Tazuko Sakane, Tomoko Kana, Toshie Tokieda, UMMMI, Yang Yong-hi, Yayoi Kusama, Yokna Hasegawa, Yoko Ono, Yoko Yamanaka, Yoriko Mizushiri, Yoshiko Shimada, Yui Kiyohara, Yuiko Matsuyama, Yuka Eda, Yukiko Mishima, Yuki Yamato, Yumi Yoshiyuki

Unfortunately, due to the linguistic capabilities of our editorial team and our collaborative editorial process, drafts must be made in English and will then be translated into Japanese.

We are able to offer a small fee for accepted submissions. Pitches should be under 300 words and include two writing samples. The deadline for pitches is Sunday 16 th February at midnight GMT.

Please send pitches to editorial (at) anothergaze (dot) com

Thank you,

Daniella Shreir & Heather Williams Guest editors: Alejandra Armendariz-Hernandez & Kimberly Icreverzi Japanese editors: Fumina Hamasaki & Kanako Nakanishi

Image credit: Motonaga Sadamasa