A new book on feminist film history – Stretching the Archives: Toward a Global Women’s Film Heritage – was recently published, Open Access and free to read for anyone with access to the internet, by Archive Books (Berlin).
This book is the result of two years of networking, workshops, and conferences that brought together scholars, archivists, and filmmakers. The focus was on addressing gaps in our shared histories, with a particular emphasis on feminist cultural memory and film heritage in the Global South. This book combines feminist and anti-colonial research, and through the network, women and individuals identifying as female from around the world came together to share passions, frustrations, knowledge, and experiences related to film archives and restoration projects. These projects have often neglected the work of women from the Global South. Recognising that the intersection of the anti-colonial movement with second wave feminism and the rise of film studies in the seventies provided a rich framework, the authors collectively decided to focus on that era to find a workable methodology for their diverse approaches to film history.