A researcher is looking for information about these UK films:
Off for the Holidays made in 1904
‘Rookery Nook made in 1930
If you have any suggestions or knowledge of the whereabouts of these films, please contact Jeff Lewis at jeff.lewis@jefflewispartnership.co.uk.
Jule Selbo (California Fullerton) and Jill Nelmes (UEL) are editing a
major work which will reference and discuss women screenwriters from
different nations and is to be published by Palgrave in 2014.
The book will contain entries for each country and its women
screenwriters. The length of each entry will be variable, depending on
he country, the screenwriter and the information available. At present
we have many countries covered from Angola to the US but more entries
are needed, especially in the following areas:
Asia
Baltic States
Canada
China
Finland
Germany
Greece
Italy
Japan
Korea
Middle East
Other European Countries
Russia
African countries
South Africa
South American countries
The above list is by no means comprehensive but these are countries where we either have no contributors or are short on detail.
Please contact either jill nelmes ( j.nelmes@uel.ac.uk) or jule selbo (jselbo@fullerton.edu) if you would like more information or are
interested in contributing.
Women and the Silent Screen VII, the seventh international conference on women and early film, will be co-hosted by the Gender Studies Program of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the Victorian College of the Arts in September 30- October 2, 2013. Previously held in Utrecht, Santa Cruz, Montréal, Guadalajara, Stockholm and Bologna, this is the first time the conference has been brought to the Australia-Pacific region.
We are inviting participants to submit abstracts (200-300 words, headed by a paper title) as well as a short biographical statement by 1 March 2013
.Those who would like to propose panels or workshops should submit a panel title, as well as the individual paper proposal. We hope that the nature of the industry itself can become a starting point for questions about women’s collaborative endeavor. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Performance and the emotions
- Women making films
- Film and the archive
- Transnational collaborations
- Indigeneity and Indigenous Peoples
- Set design and fashion
- Monstrosity and the silent screen
- Queer theory/historiography
- Studies in National cinemas (especially Australian, East & South East Asian film)
- The New Woman
- The Sound of the Silents
Those whose work does not fall within these categories are still encouraged to submit a proposal. We will make every effort to represent the breadth of scholarship being undertaken in film history.
The conference welcomes participation from scholars, archivists, students and cinephiles. It is supported by a program of screenings at ACMI (Australia Centre for the Moving Image) which will run from 26 September to 30 September, 2013. This program will be developed in collaboration with the National Film and Sound Archive.
Keynote speakers include Mary Ann Doane, Barbara Creed, Richard Abel, Weihong Bao, and Pam Cook.
For further information see www.wss2013.arts.unimelb.edu.au Please send your abstracts, or any questions you might have to the organizers at wssconference2013@gmail.com
Welcome to everyone who would like to join this organization of people fascinated by all the ways that women–throughout film history and around the world–have helped to make movies.
Joining is easy. Please go to the Directory, select Join WIFI from the pull down menu, fill in the blanks and voilà. Our aim is for the Directory to function as more than a listing of names; we hope it will be a resource for people interested in what you know. Please take a little time and explain your area of expertise and, if you might, what you are working on right now.
Film-makers are also welcome to join. We hope our Directory will become just that–a place to find films to show.
I would like to introduce Sara Nesson and Robynn Murray. Sara, on the left, is the director of Poster Girl a film about Iraq war vet, Army poster girl, poet, and artist Robynn Murray (on the right) who came back from war and then battled post traumatic stress disorder. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2010, and it was awarded Best Documentary Short by the International Documentary Association. Sara Nesson’s web site is: http://www.portrayalfilms.com/
“The Directors Guild of America is proud to bestow a Special Directorial Award for Lifetime Achievement upon pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy Blaché in recognition of her groundbreaking career as the first female filmmaker and the first filmmaker to develop narrative filmmaking.
Alice Guy Blaché (1873-1968) was an innovative and groundbreaking director who until recently has been recognized only by film buffs and film historians as the first female director and the first woman to own and run her own film studio. Guy Blaché began her career in France at the Gaumont Company, where as office manager, she persuaded the owner of the company to let her use a 60-mm motion picture camera he was developing to direct a one-minute film in 1896. Later, Guy Blaché became head of film production for the Gaumont Company and moved to the United States in 1907, where she and her husband founded Solax, eventually building a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Over the course of her career, Guy Blaché directed, wrote, supervised and/or produced more than 1,000 films of all lengths and genres.
Among her most impressive accomplishments, Guy Blaché was one of the first filmmakers to pioneer the idea of using film as a narrative device. She also made more than 100 films using a synchronized sound system between 1902 and 1906 – decades before sound became de rigeur in motion pictures.
Although Guy Blaché was recognized in her home country of France in 1955 with the Legion d’honneur, her work has remained largely unseen. In fact, only about 130 of the more than 1,000 films she made have been found, including just a handful of her feature-length films, leaving this pioneer of cinema regretfully unknown. It is the hope and intention of the DGA that this award will both honor her work and help raise awareness of her impressive accomplishments.” from DGA
The North American premiere for the newly restored Lois Weber feature Shoes (1916) will be presented on July 17 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The film will be introduced by Shelley Stamp and accompanied by Dennis James.
Here, from the festival program, is a bit more about what makes this restoration so important:
“SHOES was released to the American public in June 1916 during the height of the social reform movement. Weber directed and released an astonishing 19 films that year, many of which were highly controversial and often subjected to cries for censorship. The only known surviving copy of SHOES was a heavily deteriorated nitrate print residing in the collection of EYE Film. In 2008 the institute undertook a three-year project to restore the feature and return it to the screen. The print film was digitally scanned combined with fragments from another source, and then digitally corrected to the extent possible. English titles were recreated based on translation from the Dutch titles and the original color tinting was recreated by matching the source material. The final result of this preservation effort is a new film negative that serves as a preservation element for the film, and of course a brand new 35mm allowing SHOES to be shared with the world.”
Print courtesy of EYE Film Instituut Nederland
Take a look. We have Resources pertaining to Japanese cinema and Resources from sites in the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, and the U.S. If you can add to our cache please fill out the box at the bottom of the Resources list. Also, register in our Directory, add to the Film Makers and Distributors Directory and to the Directory of Organizations. And, spread the word about our site.
As we continue to refine this site and to make it useful to the members of Women and Film History International and to everyone who is interested in knowing more about all the ways women have helped to build film industries worldwide, we need your help to make sure the site works AND to increase the resources we can offer people who want to learn more.
Even if you have already, and often, signed up on WFHI membership lists, please go to the ” Directory, ” click “Join WFHI,” add your information, and let me know if this feature works for you in its present form.
Margo Harkin, a film-maker based in Derry, Northern Ireland, is shown in two photographs in our revolving parade: both images were taken while she was shooting the documentary Bloody Sunday, A Derry Diary (Besom Productions, 2007). When I asked for permission to use these pictures, Margo wrote she was “…glad to be of help. You are making me part of the record.” If you can, please also add to the Directory of “Film-makers and Distributions” & “Organizations,” and to the “Resources” pages. Let’s keep this record growing.
To find out who the other lovely ladies of film are simply click on her picture. You can also go to “About” and select “Photo Credits.” If you have high resolution images we add to the rotation, please send them to me.
Welcome to Women and Film History International online.
• Enjoy the parade of images of women film-makers and their films.
• Register in the Directory.
• If you can, add to our sub-directories of film-makers & distributors and organizations.
• Please add Resources you think would be useful for members of WFHI and others interested in all the roles women have played in film industries worldwide since the 1890s.
Click, browse, play, think, let me know what works, what could be made more useful or user-friendly, what isn’t at all what you want to see on this site. You can send your responses to me directly from the home page. You can also “leave a comment” after this blog.
Again, welcome, roll up your sleeves, and please help to build this site and make it work for us and for everyone interested in women and film history–international. Have fun! Ciao!
