Mary & Myself
National Film Board of Canada
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6m 59s
Directed by Sam Decoste • Animation • 2014 • 7 minutes
Mary & Myself is a story within a story, a meta-narrative about two Chinese Canadian women making their theatrical debut playing "comfort women" in The Vagina Monologues.
Fusing activism and performance, this short animated documentary honors the thousands of girls and women from Korea, China, Japan and the Philippines who were forced into sexual slavery into providing comfortﾷ to soldiers in the Imperial Japanese military during the 1930s and '40s.
Jia Tsu Thompson and Mary Mohammed spend long hours rehearsing at Mu Lan Teahouse in Halifax, where they read their lines over and over, sip tea, and recount buried stories of war. As they diligently practice together and at home, they come to have their own personal catharses. While Mary can't stop crying, Jia Tsu boils over in anger. In this imaginative animated world, the two good friends spin in circles of sadness, humour, and forgiveness in a gigantic teacup, and eventually ace their big night
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