Im/Perfect Modernisms Film Series: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

October 2024 through January 2025, join us for the Im/Perfect Modernisms Film Series. Four films will be screened throughout the run of the exhibition, offering new perspectives on the cultural contexts and artistic communities in Japan, India, China, and Cambodia that produced many of the works on view.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

“This is a delicate, devastating study of a woman who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo’s modern postwar Ginza district and entertains businessmen after work. Sly and resourceful but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society.”

The Im/Perfect Modernisms Film Series

• October 5: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
• November 16: Duvidha (1973)
• December 7: Red Sorghum (1987)
• January 18: Golden Slumbers (2011)