Latest news with #FumieMatsubara
Asahi Shimbun
4 days ago
- General
- Asahi Shimbun
Film sheds light on settlers' sex deal with Soviets in Manchuria
Fumie Matsubara, director of 'Kurokawa no Onnatachi,' discusses her documentary film in Osaka's Yodogawa Ward on June 19. (Akari Uozumi) A statue called 'Otome no Hi' (Monument to the maidens) was erected in 1982 in Gifu Prefecture. But an explanation on who the 'maidens' were and why they were being commemorated did not appear until 36 years later. A plaque inscribed with an epitaph explaining the long-hidden shame of the former village of Kurokawa was set up in 2018. And now, a documentary film sheds further light on the plight of the maidens, who were forced to 'sexually entertain' Soviet soldiers in exchange for their protection of the village's settlement in Manchuria after Japan's defeat in World War II. Directed by Fumie Matsubara, 'Kurokawa no Onnatachi' ('In Their Own Words: The Women of Kurokawa') focuses on women who started talking on camera about their traumatic experiences of sexual violence nearly 70 years after the war. It also features an association of bereaved family members of the Manchurian settlers who, inspired by the women, went to great lengths to set up the explanatory plaque at the stone monument. PROTECTION DEAL Settlers from Kurokawa, now part of Shirakawa town, emigrated to Manchuria in northeast China when it was under Japanese rule. After the war ended and the Japanese troops went home, the settlers were left to fend for themselves in hostile territory. From September through November 1945, they offered about 15 unmarried females between 17 and 21 years old to Soviet soldiers in return for protection against looters and angry locals. Four of the women died in Manchuria. The settlers eventually returned to Japan and kept mum about the sexual services. But the surviving women who came home suffered from defamatory insults. GOING PUBLIC The stone monument was erected to console the souls of the four women who died far from home. Director Matsubara has been covering the Kurokawa settlers since 2018, when she was working at TV Asahi Corp. and presented a two-minute news clip about the completion of the explanatory plaque. At the time, she was also pursuing a political scandal over falsified Finance Ministry documents concerning the heavily discounted sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen, a private educational institution. 'At a time when history was being forged, ordinary people were squarely facing an inconvenient fact of history,' Matsubara recalled. 'I felt it was a great consolation.' The film captures the changes the women went through after they shared their experiences. Harue Sato was 20 years old when she was in Manchuria and is one of the first women who went public about her ordeal. Students and locals started visiting her home to hear her stories. A senior high school teacher in the area offers a class on wartime violence based on Sato's recounts. Reiko Yasue, who was 17 when the war ended, had kept her past a secret even from family members. She would only talk about her experiences on condition of anonymity. She couldn't sleep when she remembered her days of anguish, and she rarely smiled. But her wounds began to heal when her granddaughter and other supporters, who learned about the sexual violence through news reports and books, gave her warm words. 'I really felt that dignity can be restored when you have supporters,' Matsubara said. She decided to make the documentary to show the strength of the women who publicly spoke about their tragedy and those who listen to their stories. The director asked Shinobu Otake, who has appeared in many films, television shows and theater productions that deal with the theme of peace, to serve as the narrator. The actress immediately accepted the offer. 'Inspired by what the women told them, everyone started searching for what they could do, including making this film' Matsubara said. 'I hope each audience member will also become one of the collaborators to convey their legacy.' The 99-minute film is currently showing nationwide.
South China Morning Post
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Japanese women break silence on WWII rapes by Soviet troops
Nearly 80 years after 15 young women were forced to 'offer' themselves to protect their community from Soviet troops invading Japan 's Manchurian colony in 1945, the survivors among them have spoken out publicly about their horrific experiences. The accounts of the three survivors are at the heart of In Their Own Words: The Women of Kurokawa, a new documentary by director Fumie Matsubara, which will be released in Japan on July 12. Matsubara unveiled the film at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Wednesday. The women recalled being forced by their isolated community to submit to the Soviet soldiers' demands and being repeatedly sexually assaulted. They were shunned and became the subject of gossip following their return to Japan. 'It was life or death for us then,' survivor Harue Sato says in the film. 'In fact, I died there once,' she adds, referring to the repeated rapes she endured over two months after the Soviets arrived in their village in Manchukuo , the puppet state set up by imperial Japan in Manchuria. 'All we could do was grit our teeth and hang on. We held each other's hands and cried for our mothers to save us,' she says. In 1942, more than 600 settlers from the remote mountain village of Kurokawa, in Gifu prefecture in central Japan, took over vast tracts of land on the plains of Manchukuo.
