Gaea Girls (2000, 104”) & Shinjuku Boys (2005, 53”)
Kim Longinotto
UK/Japan

Gaea Girls: follows the physically grueling and mentally exhausting training regimen of several young wanna-be GAEA GIRLS, a group of Japanese women wrestlers. The idea of them may seem like a total oxymoron in a country where women are typically regarded as docile and subservient. However, in training and in the arena, the female wrestlers depicted in this film are just as violent as  their male counterparts.

Shinjuku Boys: A film about love and gender. This documentary is set in the New Marilyn night club in Tokyo, Japan - where the hosts are women who have chosen to live as men. They can only make their living as hosts in a nightclub with other 'wannabes' like them. The young women who come there often have relationships with them but the underlying fear is whether such a relationship can withstand the pressures on a girl to get married and have children.