This panel discussion event brings together historians and academics to contextualise and explore the films and themes of the festival.

This year, Japanese cinema sociologist Dolores Martinez (SOAS), Yukio Mishima biographer Damian Flanagan, and Kate Taylor-Jones (University of Sheffield)—whose work encompasses postcolonial moments in Japanese cinema and representations of girlhood—will discuss the social experiences and subjects presented in the festival.

Post-war identity formation will be compared to a contemporary Japan which, like much of the world, is experiencing social alienation and a virulent strain of populist politics.