Women & Film

"Social Change?! The Status of Women’s Film Festivals Today."

by Skadi Loist

Keynote at "Women's Film Festivals in Dialog". International Women's Film Festival Dortmund|Köln, 17.–22. Apr. 2012, Cologne, 20th April 2012

CFP: International Film and Media Studies Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

by Ágnes Pethő

The International, peer-reviewed, open access journal of the Sapientia University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) invites the submission of original, previously unpublished articles written in English. Articles in all areas of film and media studies are welcome. Deadline for the next issue: June 15, 2012. Previous issue available online here: http://www.acta.sapientia.ro/acta-film/, and here: http://issuu.com/actauniversitatissapientiae/docs/film4_2011

Targeting American Women: Middle-Class Female Audiences, Marketing, and the Women-in-Danger Pictures of 1978-84

by Richard Nowell

(Forthcoming)

By invoking the figure of the working-class male spectator, cultural elites and film scholars have tended historically... more By invoking the figure of the working-class male spectator, cultural elites and film scholars have tended historically to reduce so-called “women-in-danger” films to sinister fantasies celebrating the most sadistic, brutal, and depraved of responses to second-wave feminism and to those American women seen to benefit from the social and economic upward mobility it facilitated. In contrast, this article reveals the extent to which films like Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Visiting Hours (1982) were actually framed to appear relevant and of interest to middle-class thirty-something-plus women, particularly those who held, or envisaged themselves holding, positions of professional influence. Cultivating this potentially lucrative audience, it is argued, involved spotlighting sympathetic female protagonists, high-end fashion, heterosexual romance, female participation in the culture industries, and gender relations discourse. Accordingly, the article reveals that what are often deplored as the most misogynist films in American history were in fact framed contemporaneously in the US public-sphere as in part glossy, topical dramas warning middle-class women of a misogynist seem running deep in American society – in short as cautionary tales of a purported backlash.

The Misogyny of Trümmer A New Reading of the Trümmerfilm

by Richard McKenzie

Presented at theThe 51st National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies 29th March

The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of... more The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of Germany’s defeat and capitulation in 1945.

Whether created in the Western or Soviet occupation zones this genre has been have been read as texts which begin the rehabilitation of the defeated Landser, begin the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung and make the first tentative steps at attributing guilt for the catastrophe that befell Germany between 1933 and 1945. Key commentators, such as Pinkert and Silbermann, concentrate on the male experience, where female characters exist principally to rehabilitate and redeem their men folk.

Concentrating on Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns this presentation will provide a new reading of the Trümmerfilm genre. This reading sees the role of the female characters less in a redemptive and more in a controlling negative role in which their independence and sexuality are employed to reduce and defeat the male characters essential masculinity. In this final battle of the German catastrophe the female characters are criticised for attempting to “civilise” the returning Landser in their own image and constraining his essential self.

Bromances, Buddy Films, and Chick Flicks

by John Alberti

Love That Just Can't Define Its Name Original

by John Alberti

Tres representaciones fílmicas de la carencia femenina como espacio liminal en Buñuel, Bemberg y Birabe

by Diana Grullon

Under Your Skin: Marina de Van and the Contemporary French Cinéma du Corps

by Tim Palmer

This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut feature Dans ma peau/In My... more This article explores the work of the French filmmaker Marina de Van, focusing on her debut feature Dans ma peau/In My Skin (2002), which deals with the issue of self-mutilation. The essay situates the film within the recent phenomenon of the cinéma du corps, whose agenda is an on-screen interrogation of physicality
in stark yet intimate terms. Using personal interviews and trade discourses, it then charts the cultural, professional and institutional contexts to de Van’s career, emphasizing her foundational experiences in film school. Finally, it analyses
Dans ma peau’s use of avant-garde style, de Van’s experimental techniques as a performer, and the film’s array of social critiques.

Contemporary French Feminine Cinema and Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence

by Tim Palmer

Don't Look Back: An Interview with Marina de Van

by Tim Palmer

Palestinian Women Filmmakers in the New World Diaspora

by Terri Ginsberg

forthcoming (in Arabic and English) in Palestinian Women Filmmakers: Strategies of Representation, Conditions of Production, ed. Alia Arasoughly (Shashat/Birzeit UP)

Voix de femmes, voies de femmes : la fin des années 1960 dans le cinéma québécois récent

by Frederic Clement

Article tiré d'une communication lors du Premier Colloque Perspectives Étudiantes Féministes de l’Université Laval, les 12 et 13 mars 2010

Introduction aux Actes du Premier Colloque Perspectives Étudiantes Féministes de l’Université Laval 12 et 13 mars 2010 (co-rédigé avec Julie Descheneaux, Marie-Hélène Deshaies, Claire Grino, Ndéye Faty Sarr, Dominique Tanguay)

Les Actes complets se trouvent sur le site de la Chaire Claire-Bonenfant - Femmes, Savoirs et Sociétés
www.etudesfeministes.fss.ulaval.ca/ChaireClaire-Bonenfant/
http://www.etudesfeministes.fss.ulaval.ca/ChaireClaire-Bonenfant/site_perspectives_etudiantes_feministes_org/index.html

Le présent article se décline en deux parties distinctes. La première aborde trois films québécois récents (Maman est... more Le présent article se décline en deux parties distinctes. La première aborde trois films québécois récents (Maman est chez le coiffeur, C’est pas moi, je le jure! et Un été sans point ni coup sûr) se déroulant à la fin des années 1960. Bien que ces trois films soient racontés du point de vue des enfants et que les femmes ne soient pas les protagonistes de ces films, j’aborderai les trois récits du point de vue de ces personnages de femmes, faisant d’elles moins les objets, mais plutôt les sujets de ces films. Seront relevés les commentaires sur ces personnages, retrouvés dans la presse spécialisée québécoise dans les revues 24 images, Séquences et CinéBulles, afin de constater de quelles façons la réalisatrice et les réalisateurs, les interviewers et les critiques de cinéma qualifient ces personnages de femmes. En deuxième partie, sera abordée la voix féminine proprement dite dans le film Maman est chez le coiffeur, à la lumière des écrits de Michel Chion et de Kaja Silverman sur la voix féminine au cinéma.

“Ri yo avan yo riw”: Rebellion and Compliance in African-Diasporic idea of Womanhood.

by Nathalie Montlouis

The aim of the event is to identify and understand the traumatic post memories that affect the soncept of womanhood... more The aim of the event is to identify and understand the traumatic post memories that affect the soncept of womanhood and femininity in African-diasporic milieu.
All will be invited to share discuss and analyse the "respectful" and "defiant"  Image of Black Women.
The event may be coupled with the Image of Black Women festival. TBC.

Robertson, J. P. 2004. “Teaching in Your Dreams: Screenplay Pedagogy and Margarethe von Trotta’s The Second Awakening of Christa Klages.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies. 13 (2), 74-92.

by Judith Robertson

This sole authored film study using viewer response methodology introduces the original concept of screenplay pedagogy.

Résumé: Cet article examine l’emploi psychologique qu’ont fait douze canadiennes de races blanches du film Das zweite... more Résumé: Cet article examine l’emploi psychologique qu’ont fait douze canadiennes de races blanches du film Das zweite Erwhachen der Christa Klages (Le second éveil), visionné dans le cadre de leur certificat en éducation primaire. L’étude fait
appel à des concepts de psychanalyse comme le transfert, la répression, le narcissisme, la mélancolie, l’idéalisation et la projection pour comprendre comment ce film est devenu pour elles non seulement un réceptacle pour le rêve sublime de
l’amour de l’enseignement mais aussi un substitut pour certaines formes de froideur institutionnelle qui menacent d’anéantir le désir. L’auteure explique ce processus d’investigation– « le ‘screen-play’ pédagogique » –qui représente une utilisation innovatrice et interdisciplinaire des théories de la réception filmique. On the surface, Margarethe von Trotta’s The Second Awakening of Christa Klages
(East Germany, 1977) is a moody little crime story about a botched bank robbery that nets its temperamental heroine (a school teacher turned terrorist) unexpected exoneration. Set in the 1970’s and based on a real-life story of a Munich kindergarten teacher, the film is haunted by German post-war culture and its social challenges: "the complexities of female bonding; the dimensions and dilemmas of liberalism and the uses and effects of violence." I utilize an audience response study format to explore how von Trotta’s film taps into unconscious desires about femininity and schooling, in which viewing identifications may be used as jumping off points for learning. The study raises important questions about how screen-play pedagogy may serve as a forum for radical thought-experimentation and self-renewal through reflective experiences that problematize the grounds and dynamics of phantasy.

‘“The Hollywood formula has been infected”: the post-punk female meets the woman’s film: Breaking Glass (Brian Gibson, UK, 1980)’ [Book chapter]

by Claire Monk

In British Women’s Cinema, eds Melanie Bell & Melanie Williams (London & New York: Routledge), 2009, pp.138-152. ISBN: 978-0-415-46696-7 HB/978-0-415-46697-4 PB.

UnInvited: Classic Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (review)

by Terri Ginsberg

Quarterly Review of Film and Video 18.3 (2001): 321-346

Lesbian Violence as Fascist Crusade in "Monster"

by Terri Ginsberg

Genders 34 (2006): http://www.genders.org/g43/g43_ginsberg.html

Isänmaan moninaiset äidinkasvot: sotavuosien suomalainen naisten elokuva sukupuoliteknologiana

by Anu Koivunen

The Contemporary Ballroom of Romance

by Moynagh Sullivan

Co-authored with Wanda Balzano, Director Gender and Women's Studies Centre, Wake Forest University, NC

Reel Paradise/Sisters In Law

by Jennifer Malkowski

In Film Quarterly 60:4 (Jun 2007): 30-34.