Shinjuku Boys - Movie - Festival QUEER

Shinjuku Boys

Kim Longinotto, Jano Williams
Documentary : 53’ / Trans, Community, Identity

An insight into gender and sexuality in Japan via a portrait of Kazuki, Tatsu, and Gaish, three trans masculine hosts working at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo’s bustling Shinjuku district. As the film follows them at home and on the job, all three talk about their lives, revealing their views on love, sex, sexual orientation, traditional relationships, and identity. Alternating with these interviews are sequences shot inside the club, a place patronized largely by heterosexual, cisgender women.

Sections: QL - Retrospective
+ Info: https://www.wmm.com

/ Details

Year: 1995

Country: UK

Language: japanese

Subtitles: english and portuguese

With: Gaish, Tatsu, Kazuki

/ Direction

Kim Longinotto, Jano Williams

Kim Longinotto (born 1952) is a British documentary filmmaker, well known for making films that highlight female rebels and pioneers. Longinotto studied Camera and Directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, and English and European Literature, at Essex University. She later followed a friend and future filmmaker, Nick Broomfield, to the National Film and Television School. She has received a number of awards for her more than twenty films over the years, including a BAFTA for her documentary "Pink Saris". 

Jano Williams went to Japan in 1974, intending to stay one year, and didn’t come home for 14. While there, she worked at the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, NHK, and subsequently moved to the television company NTV. She has worked with Kim Longinotto in several films portraying aspects of Japan's cultural and social life. She is now living in Bristol and hopes to continue making films about Japan that reflect her bond with that country.