Remembering The Victims: Documentary about wartime sex slaves in China hits the big screen

World
Europe

Today is International Memorial Day for so-called "Comfort Women", victims of sex crimes committed by Japan during the Second World War. A documentary telling the stories of 22 victims in China hit the big screen Sunday. Director Guo Ke set out to find and document the stories of these elderly women in their 80s and 90s.

Between 1931 and 1945, an estimated 200,000 women in China were forced into becoming sex slaves by the occupying Japanese Army. Aptly named, Twenty Two captures lives of the 22 remaining victims in China. The film took 3 years to make, with film crews traveling nearly 12 thousand kilometers to 29 locations.

GUO KE DIRECTOR I hope this documentary will help people understand them, let people realize besides being victims, what their life was like later, their attitude toward lifetheir names, their living conditions, who they were living with. The storytelling is restrained and careful.

GUO KE DIRECTOR My deepest impression of these senior citizens is, they are calm and no different to other elderly people, no different to grandmothers next door. They are really nice and live ordinary lives. They spend the day talking with their sons and daughters. It's not how I used to imagine. They are not living in pain.

If they were in agony each day. How could they have continued living all these years? Sadly, 14 of the elderly women featured in the film have since passed away.

GUO KE DIRECTOR "If I dig up their suffering and pain and show it to our children, what would be our message to the next generation?Agony and hatred, I don't want that. We have presented the truth. When we visited these elderly people. they were serene and calm. By showing this serenity, people can see their strength."