Women in films: ideal, danger, and social challenge

Speaker: Dr Wafa Ghermani

About the Speaker

Wafa Ghermani holds a PhD from the Université Paris 3 – La Sorbonne Nouvelle in film studies. Her PhD focused on Taiwan cinema and National Identity from the Japanese colonial period to nowadays. She currently works at the Cinémathèque française and is a curator for many festivals and Taiwan film related events (Vesoul International Asian Film Festival, Warsaw Five Flavours Film Festival, Rencontres du cinéma taiwanais in Paris...)

Her recent contributions include the forwords of the translation of the script of A City of Sadness into French, « Le cinéma taiwanais : repenser la marginalité comme centralité », « 然的內在風景與性別張力：評潘壘《颱風》 in 電影欣實 Film Appreciation, «Exils: de la nostalgie à la reconquête du passé dans le cinéma ».

About the Talk

"My PhD thesis dealt with film and national identity in Taiwan from the colonial period to nowadays. I decided to focus on fours aspects all linked with the question of identity and its representation in films: historiography to understand the evolution of the writing of Taiwan film history within and outside Taiwan, then I addressed the questions of the representation of territory, history and society.

For this presentation, I will focus on the last part of my thesis: social representation.

As for the representation of territory and history, the representation of society was long dominated by the vision of an external power. Both Japanese and then Chinese articulated a divided vision of society: Aboriginal were thus integrated in a discourse assigning them to a role of “savage” that will be eventually tamed and embrace “civilisation”, while Taiwanese people were invisible, or seen as compatriots, but also others, separated from the Chinese, being a population in exile. Thus, the representation remained ambivalent between social separation and a will to create a harmonious society under the guidance of the government.

The second main aspect of representation of society is the manner films asserted a project of modernity, which is embodied by female characters. Modernisation is presented in an ambivalent way, seductive as it allowed the nation to compete with the West but also a threat for social order, as modernisation meant more freedom for women. Female character became the main focus of films that both portray them as strong and free (in Taiwanese language-film for example) or weak and inconsistent and needing male guidance (mainly in Mandarin language film)."

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: lr27@soas.ac.uk