A former geiko from the Miyagawa-cho district of Kyoto.
A word from the director:
Although shooting took just over a year, getting to know the women in the film and earning their trust has taken most of my 15 plus years in Kyoto. It has taken a long time but now I finally feel I understand their world well enough that I can feel confident to make a film about the subject. There have been many books, documentaries and even movies made on this subject over the years, but I believe that this film alone offers a new perspective that only a long time member of a community can provide.
In my experiences as a male foreign customer, fellow practitioner of the arts, friend and husband of members of the flower and willow world, I have found myself looking for a medium in which to express the simple idea that before any of the preconceived ideas we might have, under the beautiful silken kimono and porcelain white make-up, the geisha are not mysterious creatures from a secret world but are ordinary, real women.
Hear their stories from the real geisha themselves and not through anthropologists or major network television crews that have only spent limited time studying them as subjects of research or exposé.
Peter MacIntosh, Kyoto, Japan
Peter Macintosh has lived in Kyoto Japan among the geisha community for more than 15 years. He has worked as a liasion and coordinator of Geisha or Japan related documentaries including productions for BBC, BNN, Swiss Television, National Geographic, A&E, and many more.
Real Geisha Real Women (2009)
Directed by Peter MacIntosh.
Director of Photography and Edited by John Wells
Title: Real Geisha Real Women
Running time: 52 min.
A Documentary by Peter MacIntosh
