Comfort Women Wanted

Chang-Jin Lee &

In her film Comfort women wanted, Chang-Jin Lee tells the disturbing story of more than 200.000 young women who were misused as sex slaves by the Japanese army during the Second World War.

The video comprises six episodes; the facts about the war crimes are related in highly personal interviews. The first interview, an introduction to this theme, is with one of the perpetrators, a former soldier of the Japanese army. For her film the artists also selected five women as witnesses of those times. They live in the Netherlands, China, Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan and were forced to work in brothels, which were known under the euphemistic name 'comfort stations'.

In the film we hear only the voices of those interviewed, on the screen we see black-and-white photographs with rapidly changing subtitles in English. These show us blurred pictures of the six protagonists. The women are representatives of the fate which thousands suffered. They came to terms with their destiny in various ways and have now found the courage to relate even the most intimate details of their fate. They are fighting for justice, for till today there has been no discussion in Japan about the problem of forced prostitution. (Anastasia Antropova)

* We can only show an excerpt of this work in the online archive. For the complete version, please contact the artist.

About the video

Title Comfort Women Wanted
Year 2011
Videonale VIDEONALE.14
Length 00:46:48
Format 4:3
Language English, Korean, Mandarin, Indonesian, Filipino and Dutch with English subtitles
Courtesy the artist
Specifications b/w, sound, single-channel video

About the artist

Chang-Jin Lee
  • in Seoul, KOR.
Websites