"This film is a requiem to people who have been persecuted and died in war."
In this way documentary film director Tomoko Fujiwara characterizes her moving tribute to the life of Beate Sirota Gordon and her relatives. "Sirotake no 20-Seiki (The Sirota Family and the 20th Century)" will be screened in a three-week season at Iwanami Hall in Tokyo beginning Sept. 27. However, the film and its story deserve a much wider audience, both in Japan and overseas.
Beate Sirota, to use her maiden name, is the woman known for composing, in 1946, Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution, establishing full rights for women in all matters dealing with marriage and family. But her story begins long before, and Fujiwara meticulously traces it back to the town of her ancestors' birth.