Women's Screen Work in the Archives Made Visible

Thousands of women have contributed to shaping British filmmaking, and its vibrant history, but their creative contributions are largely absent from public knowledge of that history, because evidence documenting their work is often buried and invisible in major film-related archives and museums. Our project will transform the understanding of women's creative contributions to the history of British filmmaking, demonstrating what can be learned by making their work easier to find in film-related archives, and more visible in film museums. We aim to open up women's film history and we understand the term 'filmmaker' inclusively, widening the term to include and value women's screen work in a range of production roles beyond the category of director or producer. Working with the major film-related collections in the UK - the British Film Institute and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum - our project will progress through dialogue between professional archivists, curators and film scholars. Together we will think about how the cataloguing and description of film-related collections can be modified to amplify the discoverability of women filmmakers and their work. Our team will also innovate in curation, developing exciting new ways to visualise the creativity of women filmmakers and we will spotlight untold stories of their careers in physical museum exhibitions, and in digital formats. Through interviewing we will learn from women filmmakers about how they work, using this valuable knowledge to augment catalogue descriptions, and to animate our physical and digital curation. We will also seek to better understand the context in which archivists and curators work and the challenges they face in the screen heritage sector through undertaking a series of interviews. Our project has regional, national and international partners: the Exeter Phoenix Media Centre; the Wessex Sound and Film Archive, Winchester; the Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea, Wales; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, and the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sharing our research with these partners will enable us to more fully understand the common challenges of making women's screen work visible to a range of audiences, and allow us to take our insights in the UK context to impact work in screen heritage internationally.