Women Filmmakers : Refocusing

by Levitin, Jacqueline; Pessis, Judith; Raoul, Valerie; Plessis, Judith

• ISBN13: 9780774809023
• ISBN10: 0774809027
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of British Columbia Pr

Summary

What difference does it make when a woman wields the camera? What is the relationship of the work and experience of women filmmakers to feminism and feminist theory? Have issues of gender in films by women been eclipsed by issues of race and class? How has the situation of women filmmakers changed over the past twenty years? Women Filmmakers: Refocusing casts a critical eye on the often-overlooked work of women filmmakers. It provides a rich sampling of the wealth of thought and experience of women in the film industry and brings together in a unique way the views of creators and critics from around the world. This wide-ranging volume includes contributions from prominent filmmakers and scholars, such as Helma Sanders Brahms, Deepa Mehta, Pratibha Parmar, Margarethe von Trotta, Ann Wheeler, and E. Ann Kaplan. Questions of history and theory, genre, creativity, funding and distribution, national and cultural identity, and class all come to the fore in this unparalleled contemporary study of women's film culture. Equally accessible to non-specialists and researchers, this book will appeal to filmmakers, film studies faculty and students, film buffs, and those with an interest in women's studies and cultural studies. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction Refocusing: Talking about (and with) Women Filmmakers	3	(12)
Jacqueline Levitin
Judith Plessis
Valerie Raoul
Part 1: Women Filmmakers: Refocusing History and Theory
Women, Film, Resistance: Changing Paradigms	15	(14)
E. Ann Kaplan
Refocusing Authorship in Women's Filmmaking	29	(9)
Angela Martin
Women Filmmakers and the Avant-Garde: From Dulac to Duras	38	(13)
Donia Mounsef
Cinefeminism in Its Middle Ages, or ``Please, Please, Please Give Me Back My Pleasure'': The 1990s Work of Sally Potter, Chantal Akerman, and Yvonne Rainer	51	(14)
Catherine Fowler
Part 2: Close-up on the Life and Works of Auteures from Europe
Helma Sanders Brahms: An Introduction	65	(6)
Steven Taubeneck
Interview and Excerpts from a Master Class with Helma Sanders Brahms	71	(7)
The Personal and the Political: Interview with Margarethe von Trotta	78	(6)
Changing Identity: Margarethe von Trotta's The Second Awakening of Christa Klages	84	(12)
Siew Jin Ooi
Agnieszka Holland: Continuity, the Self, and Artistic Vision	96	(12)
B. Amarillis Lugo de Fabritz
The Dancing Body: Sally Potter as a Feminist Auteure	108	(11)
Corinn Columpar
Part 3: Women in the Mainstream: Using Popular Genres in Europe
The Vanishing Healer in Doris Dorrie's Nobody Loves Me	119	(8)
Kathryn Barnwell
Marni Stanley
Women Directors and Genre Films in France	127	(11)
Brigitte Rollet
Mainstreaming the Margins in France: Three Films au Feminin	138	(13)
Caroline Eades
Lina Wertmuller: The Grotesque in Seven Beauties	151	(16)
Josette Deleas
Part 4: Focus on Conditions of Production: Training, Funding, Distribution
Agnieszka Holland, Barbara Sass, and Dorota Kedzierzawska in the World of Male Polish Filmmaking	167	(13)
Janina Falkowska
The Films of Helke Misselwitz: Reconstructing Gender and Identity in the Former GDR	180	(8)
Ute Lischke
``Cinema des Copines'' and an Interview with Patricia Plattner	188	(11)
Suzanne Buchan
Making Feature Films: Panel Discussion with Helma Sanders Brahms (Germany), Caroline Eades (France), Patricia Plattner (Switzerland), and Anne Wheeler (Canada)	199	(9)
Making Documentary Films: Panel discussion with Nicole Giguere, Brenda Longfellow, Loretta Todd, and Aerlyn Weissman	208	(11)
Michelle Bjornson
Part 5: Women's Films through a Postcolonial Lens
Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Representations of Identity in Two Kenyan Films	219	(10)
Beatrice Wanjiku Mukora
Shuhaimi Baba and the Malaysian New Wave: Negotiating the Recuperation of Malay Custom (Adat)	229	(10)
Gaik Cheng Khoo
Representation of Women in the Films of Maria Luisa Bemberg	239	(10)
Maria de los Angeles Carbonetti
Rita de Grandis
Monica Escudero
Omar Rodriguez
Temporality and Identity in Sara Gomez's Documentaries	249	(15)
Susan Lord
Sprung from Sisterhood: Interview with Yue-Qing Yang on Making Nu Shu: A Hidden Language of Women in China	264	(9)
Part 6: National and Cultural Montages: Crossing Boundaries
An Introduction to Deepa Mehta: Making Films in Canada and India	273	(11)
Jacqueline Levitin
Excepts from a Master Class with Deepa Mehta	284	(7)
The Post of Colonial in the Works of Pratibha Parmar: Kiss My Chuddies	291	(6)
Tracy Prince
Interview and Excerpts from a Master Class with Pratibha Parmar	297	(14)
E. Ann Kaplan
Documentaries Made in India: Raman Mann and Patricia Plattner	311	(12)
Part 7: Representations of and by Minority Women
Women of Maghrebi Origin in Recent Films from France	323	(7)
Carrie Tarr
Katinka Heyns: Questioning Afrikaans Culture	330	(12)
Lesley Marx
Making Novia que te vea: Interview with Guita Schyfter	342	(5)
Beyond the Homeland: Latinø-Canadian Film and the Work of Marilu Mallet and Claudia Morgado	347	(26)
Elena Feder
Part 8: Revisioning Gender and Diversity in Canada
Women Filmmakers in Quebec: Documentaries (Nicole Giguere) and Feature Films	373	(13)
Jocelyne Denault
Querying/Queering Stereotypes: Interview with Carole Ducharme on Making Straight from the Suburbs	386	(8)
Shadow and Light: First Nations Women Filmmakers	394	(9)
Ken Eisner
Unsettling the West: First Nations Films in British Columbia	403	(15)
Michelle La Flamme
Leaving Gender Aside: The Legacy of Studio D?	418	(15)
Diane Burgess
The Gender of the Gaze in Cinematography: A Woman with a Movie Camera	433	(14)
Zoe Dirse
Selected Film Sources	447	(8)
Select Bibliography	455	(18)
Notes on Contributors	473	(4)
About the Editors	477	(2)
Index	479