Chantal Bertalanffy

Thesis title: Reading Post-Disaster Japanese Narrative Cinema as Radical Democracy: 3.11, Trauma and the Legacy of the ‘Lost Decades’

PhD in Japanese

  • School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Contact details

Biography

Background

Chantal Bertalanffy is a PhD Candidate in Japanese Studies at The University of Edinburgh. Previously, she studied Media and Film Studies (BA & BA Hons) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and obtained her MA in Filmmaking from The London Film School.

Research summary

Chantal's thesis "Reading Post-Disaster Japanese Narrative Cinema as Radical Democracy: 3.11, Trauma and the Legacy of the ‘Lost Decades’" examines Japanese cinema after the triple disaster of 2011 known as ‘3.11’. Specifically, it investigates how and why trauma features prominently in an important group of films of this kind. Contrary to the expectation that the trauma in the films under investigation reflects the trauma of those who survived the earthquake and tsunami, or had to evacuate their homes due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it points to the curious fact that the trauma represented is more closely associated with the country’s socio-economic problems. Respective chapters look at films focussed on workers, families, women and young people, with analyses of films by Ishii Yūya, Hiroki Ryūichi, Sono Sion, Uchida Nobuteru, Tsukamoto Shinya and Higuchi Shinji. This thesis is the first major study of post-disaster Japanese cinema.

Project activity

Also a filmmaker, Chantal is currently developing her first feature film.

For more details, see http://www.tiesthatbind.eu/portfolio/junana/

 

She is also considering turning her thesis into a documentary.

Invited speaker

  • Familie im zeitgenössischen japansichen Kino (The Family in contemporary Japanese Cinema)

06.06.2021 Nippon Connection Film Festival (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, online) 

https://db.nipponconnection.com/de/event/1081/familie-im-zeitgenoessischen-japanischen-kino

Watch the talk here (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv1NYa_8MSY

 

  • Women in Contemporary Japanese Cinema

11.06.2020 Nippon Connection Film Festival (Frankfurt am Main, Germany - online)

https://db.nipponconnection.com/de/event/169/frauen-im-japanischen-kino-der-gegenwart-

Watch the talk here: https://m.facebook.com/nipponconnection/videos/3155928934468260/

 

  • Introductory Talk on Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters 

November 2018  BFI Film Audience Network touring programme, various Scottish cinemas

 

  • New Godzilla, Old Trauma? Japanese Cinema post Fukushima

31.5.2018 Nippon Connection Film Festival (Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

 

 

Papers delivered

  • Utsukushikunai kuni: Cinematic Representations of ‘Ugly Japan’

13.12.2022 British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) Conference (The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK)

 

  • 3.11, Women and Inequality

13.12.2019 Heath, Risk and Disaster Symposium (HeaRD) (The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK)

 

  • Single-Mothers in Post-Disaster Japanese Cinema

04.09.2019 Joint East Asian Studies (JEACS) Conference (The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK)

 

  • The Relationless Society and Fukushima's Trauma: Doris Dörrie's ‘Fukushima mon Amour’ and Sion Sono's ‘Himizu’

7.07.2019 The 11th International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS 11) Conference (Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands)

 

  • Post-Disaster Japan's Cultural Trauma, ‘the way things have been' and Cinema

27.06.2019 Memory Studies Association (MSA) Conference (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain)

 

  • What happened to change? Trauma in post-disaster Japanese Cinema

07.09.2018 British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS) Conference (The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK) 

 

  • The Cultural Trauma of Fukushima, Power and The Ethics of Fictional Films

04.07.2018 Film Philosophy Conference (The University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden) 

 

  • The Articulation of Power: 'Shin Godzilla's' Cultural Trauma in Post-Fukushima Cinema and 'Love and Peace's' Resistance

29.06.2018 European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS): Media Tactics and Engagement (The University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

 

  • What happened to change? Fukushima, Power and Trauma

23.10.2017 Bilkent Science Technology and Society  Network (University of Bilkent, Ancara, Turkey, online) 

 

  • Whose Trauma is it? The Cinema of 3.11 

15.09.2017 International Conference 'Post-Fukushima Art and Literature in Japan and The West' (The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK) 

 

  • Whose Trauma is it? '3.11', Power Struggle and Cinema

27.07.2017 Nordic Summer University: Trauma Narratives and the Ethics of Reading (Saulkrasti, Latvia)

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