Details and tickets purchase information: 
https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/when-a-woman-ascends-the-stairs-2025-08
Harvard students admitted free to regularly priced shows.

Directed by Naruse Mikio 
With Takamine Hideko, Nakadai Tatsuya, Mori Masayuki
Japan, 1960, 35mm, b/w, 111 min. 
Japanese with English subtitles

From one bar to another, hostess Keiko (Takamine Hideko) seeks out patronage to support her family and fund her dream of having her own bar. Her mastery of flattery and affected coldness fall short as protection against men who corner her with bills, debts and other deceptive gestures disguised as care. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs remains one of Naruse's most renowned films, celebrated for Takamine's superbly controlled performance and for its black-and-white cinematography - which, with Mayuzumi Toshiro's jazz score and Takamine's voiceover narration, invokes a noir-adjacent sensibility. – Kelley Dong

Additional screening:
August 17 (Sunday), 3:00 pm

Harvard Film Archive special film series FLOATING CLOUDS… THE CINEMA OF NARUSE MIKIO co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute