- Philippine Independent Film Festival, in collaboration with the Japan Foundation Asia Center: EYES for Embracing Diversity tackled the film Of Love & Law.
- Of Love & Law centers on stories of people who are silenced and made invisible by Japanese society and its laws.
- It also aims to reflect on an important question that these people struggle with.
Philippine Independent Film Festival, an allied festival of EIGASAI since 2016, had a screening and panel discussion on issues surrounding LGBTQ, minorities, and the importance of inclusion last August 5 at Cinematheque Centre Manila.
This is in collaboration with a project of the Japan Foundation Asia Center: EYES for Embracing Diversity, geared towards practitioners, researchers, and educators in the Southeast Asian regions and Japan who have been striving to create a diverse and inclusive society. This is co-organized by the Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce (PLCC), and the Film Development Council of the Philippines.
Of Love & Law tells the hidden stories of people who are silenced and made invisible by Japanese society and its laws; fighting for justice and love. It centers and aims to answer one important question: What does it mean to be a minority, to have a family and what does it take to be yourself in an increasingly polarized world?
This question is mirrored by Of Love & Law‘s premise which tells the story of Fumi and Kazu, who are partners in love and law; they run the first law firm in Japan set up by an openly gay couple. The two lawyers enter into the lives of their clients; each revealing the challenges of being an individual who is made invisible or silenced by a deeply conformist society, for simply being different. Then, Rokudenashiko, an artist arrested for breaking the obscenity law with her vagina themed art works, enters into the scene; Ms. Tsujitani dismissed from her teaching position for not singing the national anthem at a graduation ceremony; Anonymous individuals who have no official legal status in Japan for being born outside of the traditional family structure.
In a country where being a family is the ultimate social status, the lawyers dream of becoming dads – but adoption is not even an option. But one day, Kazu and Fumi find themselves taking in a boy who has suddenly been made homeless, and their world starts to change.
This documentary is about contemporary Japanese society through the lives of people in challenging circumstances including LGBT individuals and those left out of Japan’s family registry system. Director Toda Hikaru, who has worked for many years in the US and Europe, depicts the lives of an openly gay couple who are lawyers. Kazu and Fumi are an openly gay couple who run a law office together in downtown Osaka. They met 15 years ago, and are inseparable in work and in their private lives, but their relationship is not recognized by the law. They both dream of being parents. One day, they find themselves caring for a boy with no place to go.
It won the Best Film Award at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival’s Independent Japanese Cinema category.
