Love Letter
Tanaka creates a vibrant panorama of post-war Japanese urban life in her poignant directorial debut, from a screenplay by gay activist filmmaker Keisuke Kinoshita. Two brothers share a tumbledown apartment off an alley bustling with businesses of varied legitimacy. One buys and re-sells used books at a markup. The other, a former soldier, wanders the streets pining for his lost love Michiko and winds up writing letters to French and American GIs from the Japanese women they left behind. But what happens when the elusive Michiko finally turns up? An assured first film that lays bare the traumas and dreams of a generation rebuilding their lives.

DIRECTOR: Kinuyo Tanaka. WRITTEN BY: Keisuke Kinoshita, Fumio Niwa. CAST: Masayuki Mori, Yoshiko Kuga, Jûkichi Uno, Kyôko Kagawa. 1953. 98 min. Japan. B&W. Japanese. DCP. Restored in 4K by Toho Co., Ltd.

Girls of the Night
Tanaka returns more urgently to the underworld of illicit crime and prostitution in the assured Girls of the Night. Framed by the passing of Japan’s Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956, Girls of the Night follows former “red light woman” Kuniko as she tries to rejoin society after being confined to the Shiragiku Ladies Dormitory. Still treated by most men as an object of either possession or disdain, Kuniko can’t seem to outrun her past, especially when she’s electrified by the bustle of crowded city nights.

DIRECTOR: Kinuyo Tanaka. WRITTEN BY: Sumie Tanaka. STORY BY: Masako Yana. CAST: Hisako Hara, Akemi Kita, Masumi Harukawa. 1961. 98 min. Japan. B&W. Japanese. DCP. Restored in 4K by Toho Co., Ltd.

All film screenings in the Forever a Woman: Six Films by Kinuyo Tanaka series are available here.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.