Little Miss Sumo is about female sumo wrestling champion Hiyori Kon who confronts obstacles both inside and outside the ring in an attempt to change Japan’s national sport forever. Will both genders ever be regarded as equal in the sport of sumo? With Tokyo 2021 on the horizon how is this sporting world adapting? In a post #MeToo and #KuToo era how has Little Miss Sumo contributed to discussions revolving around larger discussions of gender equality in Japanese society?

Before participating, we recommend that you watch Matt Kay’s short film ‘Little Miss Sumo’ (length: 19 minutes) on Netflix.

Date: Wednesday 16 September 2020

UK Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm (GMT+1)
Japan Time: 8:00pm-9:00pm (GMT+9)

To book your place: https://dajf.org.uk/event/little-miss-sumo-smashing-glass-ceilings

About the contributors

Matt Kay is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in London. He founded Walks Of Life Films in 2011 after making his first feature documentary Over The Wall about a British football team’s journey to play in Palestine and has continued making socially conscious, character led documentaries. In the past nine years he’s directed and shot a variety of projects for broadcast, festivals and online including Netflix, BBC, Channel 4, SKY, Facebook, The Guardian and over fifty film festivals. He has filmed all over the world including Egypt during the Arab Spring, a Brazilian favela during the World Cup and Japan for his latest short Little Miss Sumo, which is a Netflix Original, available in 190 countries and in 30 languages worldwide. He is currently expanding his award winning film into a feature documentary with Endeavor Content and is in production with another feature documentary for A&E Networks about one of the world’s most successful music groups.