The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation has donated the original film negatives of a documentary on comfort women to the Taiwan Film Institute. The foundation says it hopes the government will help preserve the film and the memory of a historical tragedy.
An old woman breaks out in tears as she speaks about the pain she suffered during World War II, towards the end of Japanese rule on Taiwan. This is a scene from “A Secret Buried for 50 Years”, an award-winning documentary film. The film tells the stories of Taiwan’s comfort women, women forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military during the war.
The film’s production was funded by a local NGO, the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation. On Tuesday, the foundation donated the original film negative of the documentary to the Taiwan Film Institute in the hopes of preserving the film and the history it records.
Institute Chairperson Wang Chyun-Chih says the institute will work on digitizing the negative for long-term preservation. Wang said the institute is also looking to conduct dialogues with Korean filmmakers on the subject of Korean comfort women in order to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the history of Asia during WWII.