Women on the Front Line: 15% of Japan's Politicians

Japanese local elections in April 2023 featured a record number of female candidates. Ranked 116th out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, Japan is now changing at grass-roots level. We spent three months following two candidates: a woman in Ibaraki Prefecture busy raising children while campaigning on social media, and a single parent in Nagasaki Prefecture gathering local support. This documentary offers a rare glimpse of a local election system that has changed very little in decades, and what two women bring to that challenging reality. Will our two candidates win? Until now, media coverage of local council elections has mainly focused on the election results and only rarely reported on the issues facing the local communities themselves or the subsequent efforts of the newlyelected councils or their members. Today, however, interest in local politics is waning, the councilors themselves are getting older, and ever more council elections are uncontested. It is, at the same time now being predicted that the number of female candidates will increase. This report examines the current situation of women living in rural areas by following two women’s actual election campaigns, earning awards both in and outside Japan.