„Migration to Japan“ in documentary filmmaking
The hour-long film documents the life of two Indian women migrants who moved to Japan more than a decade ago as trailing spouses. The women were excited to move to a foreign country and to be with their husbands, but they had no prior knowledge of Japan. Having witnessed at a distance the lives of their relatives settled in the US, UK, and Canada, they had similar expectations for their own future lives in Japan. But the reality was to prove different from the expectation. In place of comfort, luxury, love, and fun, loneliness and fear took over. Through personal narratives told by the women, we examine past, present and future expectations and see how these affect their roles as Indian women, wives, mothers, and workers in a foreign country, as well as the challenges they faced in ‘Finding their Niche’.
The screening includes a Q&A with the director Dr. Magha Wadhwa.
Language: English
Screentime: 60 min.
English Trailer: https://vimeo.com/743482060
Director’s Biography – Dr. Megha Wadhwa is a migration researcher and Japanese and Indian studies Scholar. She is a research associate at Free University of Berlin, and a visiting fellow at Sophia University, Tōkyō, which is also her alma mater. Originally from New Delhi, she was a resident of Tōkyō for about 15 years before she moved to Berlin in 2021. She is the author of the book ‘Indian Migrants in Tōkyō: A Study of Socio-Cultural, Religious and Working Worlds’ (Routledge: 2021). She has also written several articles on the Indian community in Japan and other topics for The Japan Times and journals. Currently she is working on ‘Indian Professionals in Japan and Singapore: Migration Trends, Labor Market Integration and Challenges’ and is a part of the research project – ‘Qualifications and Skill in the Migration Process of Foreign Workers in Asia’(QuaMaFA), supported by Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).
Ort: Japan-Zentrum der LMU, Seminargebäude am Englischen Garten, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Raum B001.
Fotos: @Megha Wadhwa