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CALL FOR PAPERS                               

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 have always been widely involved in and around cinema as: producers, directors, scriptwriters, cinematographers, editors, designers, actresses, sound designers, voice coaches, composers, distributors, programmers, cinema managers, publicists, critics, audiences, and so on. This international conference brings together researchers, archivists, librarians, filmmakers, website and database designers to explore new research in women’s film history, its future development, and its impact on approaches to cinema and film history itself.

We welcome individual case-studies of women working in or around silent, sound and digital cinemas, in different national contexts, or across different media; papers on historiographic, socio-economic and aesthetic issues (including the impact of the women’s movement); and considerations of the future of women’s film history posed by globalization, digital media and changes in archiving and databasing. Proposals for papers might include issues such as:

• sources and methodologies for gender-oriented film research
• strategies for archiving, preservation and programming of women’s films
• impact of women on cinema as audiences, campaigners, fans
• women’s career moves from other creative media into cinema
• future histories of women’s movement film workshops and recent filmmaking
• cross-national connections and comparisons
• relationship between feminism and women’s history
• usefulness of ‘women’s cinema’ as a category in post-feminist and digital contexts
• significance of women’s film history to women’s film practice now
• curriculum issues, e.g: critical canons, teaching and film availability
• women’s film historiography: filling gaps or changing film history?

 Contributions from post-graduate researchers are welcome and some bursaries offered. Women’s History Review, Journal of British Cinema and Television and Framework have indicated interest in publishing suitable papers, subject to reviewers’ reports.

 Keynote speakers, panelists & screenings will be confirmed in October.

The conference will include screenings, forums on teaching, curricula, and the future organization and web presence of the Women’s Film History Network.

 Proposals (150 word limit) for presentations of 20 minutes (including audiovisual material) should be sent by 1 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: [email protected]. For more information about the Network and Conference please visit our wiki at http://wfh.wikidot.com.

This was the first film to be shot on the Hebridean island of St. Kilda, and should not be confused with the later film from 1928 ('St. Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle'), which is more closely concerned with the population that would later be evacuated from the island forever. This earlier film was by the pioneering bird cinematographer, Oliver Pike, and focuses on the island's bird population, as well as the St. Kildans' remarkable methods of snaring sea birds for food and gathering eggs from the precarious cliff face. To achieve the spectacular shots of the bird colonies and birds in flight, Pike had to develop his climbing skills, with the aid of the locals, burdened as he was with a heavy film camera. (Bryony Dixon)

This film footage of the Ziegler North Pole expedition was reissued in Britain by Charles Urban in 1909 when all things Polar were of almost obsessive interest to the British film-going public. This film shows an early American attempt on the North Pole filmed by expedition leader Anthony Fiala. It shows the expedition ship S.S. America travelling through pack ice and attempting to land and features shots of the expedition members with their dog sleds on the ice. (Bryony Dixon)