Women?s Film History Network ? UK/Ireland
Doing Women?s Film History: Reframing
Cinema Past and Future
13-15 April 2011
Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies
University of Sunderland
Despite their marginalization in film history,
women continue to be widely involved in cinema
as producers, directors, scriptwriters,
cinematographers, editors, designers, actresses,
distributors, programmers, cinema managers,
publicists, critics, audiences. This
international conference brings together
researchers, archivists, filmmakers and those
involved in distributing and programming films
to explore new research in women?s film history,
asking how this impacts on conceptions of cinema
and how women?s filmmaking can be made more visible, accessible and relevant.
Plenary Speakers and Panelists include: Monica
Dall?Asta (Bologna University; Non solo dive.
Pioniere del cinema italiano); Jane Gaines
(Columbia University, Women Film Pioneers
Project); Christine Geraghty (Glasgow
University; Women and Soap Opera); Karola
Gramman (Kinothek Asta Neilsen, Frankfurt);
Debbie Horsfield (Theatre/TV writer/producer);
Margo Harkin (Besom Productions; Northern
Ireland Film Commission); Sue Harper (Portsmouth
University; Women in British Cinema); Clare
Holden (Sally Potter Archive); Kate Kinninmont
(Women in Film & TV ? UK); Neepa Majumdar
(Pittsburg University, Wanted, Cultured Ladies
Only: Female Stardom in India 1930s-1950s);
Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck, London University;
feminist filmmaker & writer); Tessa Ross
(Controller, Film4); Heide Schlüpmann (Goethe
Universität, Frankfurt; The Uncanny Gaze);
Felicity Sparrow (Central St Martins; Circles);
Debra Zimmerman (Women Make Movies, New York).
The conference will also include ?screenings
?forums on teaching & the curriculum ?the future
development of Women?s Film History Network ? UK/Ireland.
Papers are invited on a broad range of issues
raised by women?s involvement in cinema:
?women?s film historiography: filling gaps or
changing film history? ?relationship between
feminism & women?s film history ?historising
women?s film collectives of 1970s and 80s
?impact of women on cinema as audiences,
campaigners, fans ?women?s career moves from
other creative industries into cinema ?migrant
and diasporic women?s filmmaking ?cross-national
connections & comparisons ? strategies for
archiving, preservation & exhibition of women?s
films ?sources & methodologies for
gender-oriented film research ?impact of
digitisation on women?s filmmaking & future
histories ? ?women?s cinema? as critical
category in post-feminist contexts ? women?s
film history & women?s film practice now
?changing the curriculum: critical canons, teaching & film programming
Women?s History Review, Journal of British
Cinema and Television, History Workshop Journal
and Framework have indicated interest in
publishing suitable papers, subject to
reviewers? reports. Proposals from post-graduate
researchers are welcome and some bursaries offered.
Proposals (150 word limit) for presentations of
20 minutes (including audiovisual material)
should be sent by 1st December 2010 to: Lianne
Hopper, The David Puttnam Media Centre, Sir Tom
Cowie Campus at St Peter?s, St Peter?s Way,
Sunderland, SR6 ODD, UK; or by email to:
<mailto:(wfhconference /at/ sunderland.ac.uk)>(wfhconference /at/ sunderland.ac.uk).
For more information please visit the conference
blog at
<http://wfhnsunderland.blogspot.com/p/directions.html>http://wfhnsunderland.blogspot.com/p/directions.html.