Taiwan's first documentary on WWII "comfort women" to be digitalized

A Secret Buried For 50 Years, Taiwan's first documentary on the "comfort women" of World War II shot in 1998, will be digitalized, according to the Taiwan Film Institute Tuesday.

The documentary, sponsored by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (TWRF), interviewed 13 women from Taiwan who were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army, known as "comfort women" during WWII. It was the first time these victims made public their stories and identities.

The TWRF donated the original films of the documentary to the Taiwan Film Institute at a ceremony in Taipei on Tuesday afternoon.

"We hope the films will be in the hands of professionals and preserved under more suitable conditions so that more people will learn about this period of history, remember it and never let it happen again," said Yeh Der-lan, president of the TWRF, at the ceremony.

Recalling touching stories of several victims, Yang Chia-yuen, the documentary's director, said that since most of the victims interviewed in the documentary had passed away over the past two decades, the documentary serves as a vital commemoration of the women and their life stories.

"I hope more people can see the documentary, particularly young people," she said. "To this very day, we still haven't given the women in the documentary and others who also suffered as 'comfort women' the justice they deserve. We should continue to fight for this cause."

The Taiwan Film Institute plans to carry out a thorough examination of the original films and transform them into digital files so that they can be screened and shared more easily through today's media, said Wang Chun-chi, director of the institute.