Kae Shimada

In Kae, Act Like A Girl, Idemitsu continues her experimental narrative exploration of women's roles in contemporary Japan with a tale of women's liberationist awakening. Here she presents a young female artist's conflict with the traditional, patriarchal expectations of women in Japanese culture, in which men are privileged and women are groomed to be wives and mothers. Within Idemitsu's narrative, video screens and images represent the protagonist's inner struggle — memories, conscience, familial pressure — as she subordinates and then ultimately achieves her personal and artistic desires.

In 1903, a young Scotswoman goes to join her diplomat fiancé in Manchuria. She marries him, and finds herself in a war zone. Disenchanted with her husband, she falls in love with a married Japanese nobleman, Count Kentaro Kurihama, and bears him a son. She carves out a life for herself in Japanese society, despite the hardships and ostracism she faces as both a Westerner and a woman.