wCan you imagine a film about lesbian nuns in 1950s Japan? Look no further than this year’s BFI Flare festival.
‘Impure Nuns’ is a cheap flick from Japan’s Shin-Tōhō studio. Released in 1958 it tells the story of a young Catholic woman who enters a convent after a rape & abortion. Some years on, after becoming a model nun, she is seduced by a wild young novice and her life unravels.
The film is mad, camp as hell, disturbing in its treatment of rape; but at times also beautiful and romantic. It bombed on release as it wasn’t sexually explicit enough for its intended male audience but was too obviously intended as semi-porn to be remarketed to women (they did try).
The director was Michiyoshi Doi and it starred Miyuki Takakura as Sister Eri and Mayumi Ōzora as the young novice Anna.
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