Documentaries

Believing he was sacked unjustly from his job as an engineer in a big Japanese corporation and demanding his position back, Tanaka Tetsuro has protested outside the company’s front gate every workday morning for over a quarter of a century, a campaign that has outlasted at least fourteen Japanese Prime Ministers and three company presidents.

His dismissal followed his resistance to what he perceived as workplace injustices and his determination to remain true to his ideals. Tanaka, a Buddhist and president of the company’s mandolin club, had refused to perform the company’s morning callisthenics - regarding them as a demeaning loyalty test, a kind of brainwashing. Instead he would sit in silent protest and watch his fellow workers exercise in unison.

He had also supported redundant workers in their campaign for re-instatement and stood against company candidates in workplace elections. Intrigued by the longevity of his campaign and maybe the longest one-man picket in Japan, and after meeting him on the internet, Australian filmmaker Maree Delofski travelled to Japan in time for the 25th anniversary of his protest.

Wondering what fuels his determination?; in a world that places a premium on conformity, Delofski discovered that Tanaka-San has found a way to ‘become himself’.

In the latter part of the 1960s the Civil Rights movement made its way into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community. Across the country, LGBT persons defiantly stood up and fought for the right to be out, proud, and equal. Today, the LGBT community is out and definitely proud; however, they are far from equal. Those who ‘could not take it anymore’ some 40 years ago, at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, The Stonewall Inn in New York City, and elsewhere across the United States, are now older and facing an onslaught of discrimination from their government, social service networks, and even from their own community.

Ten More Good Years introduces remarkable LGBT elders who share inspiring stories of their lives and queer history. It is through these stories that the governmental and social injustices quietly reveal themselves, shedding light on what it is now, and what it will be to grow old and gay in America. Outdated tax laws, Medicaid and Medicare regulations, social security and inheritance laws, a lack of cultural competency within social Services, and the need for non-discriminatory housing are all issues currently facing the elder LGBT population. Ten More Good Years corroborates these injustices through coast-to-coast interviews with gerontologists, social service workers, Lawyers from NCLR, senior strategists from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, along with a host of other credible figures.