Work Package 1
WP1 -Women Screenwriters, Directors and Producers in Film and Television History
WP1 seeks to contribute to the elaboration of feminist histories of the French, British and US film and television industries from the perspective of women screenwriters, directors and producers. It follows in the long line of feminist historians who, at least since Sheila Rowbotham’s Hidden from History (1973), have endeavored to write women’s history. WP1 thus aims to participate in the current dynamic of writing feminist film and television histories.
FEMME members will collect interviews to actively contribute to increasing the number and visibility of primary sources documenting the experiences of women directors and showrunners in the British, French and US film and television industries. Interviewees will be asked to reflect on their experiences, on possible evolutions in terms of gender equality, on the persistence of systemic sexism, on how feminist discourses may have affected the industry, as well as on their own relationship to feminism and how feminist discourses may or may not have informed their work. Central to the project are women’s desires to make their voices heard and willingness to contribute to the writing of film and television history. The interviews will provide the basis for some of the consortium members’ talks and articles, some of which could be presented at the conference organized in Montpellier.
WP1 will also focus specifically on the question of writing film and television history from a feminist perspective. It will borrow its methodology from early examples of feminist histories of history and literature (Rowbothan 1973; Todd 1988) that sought to ground voices that have been silenced and/or marginalized. The comparative approach should ultimately bring to the fore the connections and conflicts between feminist discourses within each nation, as well as women artists’ and producers’ differing attitudes towards feminism. The comparative approach can also bear on the historiography of film and television history, for instance by examining the evolution of feminist writings in France, Great Britain and the US on an artist like Agnès Varda or by examining whether academic attitudes toward the writing of feminist film and television history within each country.
WP1 David Roche