Women's Film History: Columbia University and the Museum of Modern Art, March 2010

Museum of Modern Art, Warner Screening Room

Round-Table: Columbia University Seminar—"Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation" & WFHN (UK/Ireland)

Reviewing motivation and progress in construction of women's film history—from Women Film Pioneers to Women and Film History International.

Moderator: Drake Stutesman (Framework, The Women's Film Preservation Fund)

Christine Gledhill: "Introducing the British/Irish Women's Film History Project"

Bryony Dixon: "Transnational Stories—Women and Their Films Crossing Borders—Archival and Research Issues"

Screening: Daisy Doodad's Dial (Turner Film Company, 1914). Directed by Laurence Trimble. Cast: Florence Turner (Daisy Doodad) and Larry Trimble (Husband). (app. 10 min. si., b&w, 35 mm; NFTVA; LOC print).

Mark Garrett Cooper: "Tackling Universal Women as a Research Problem: What Historiographic Sources Do and Don't Tell Us about 'Gender' in the Silent Motion Picture Studio"

Screening: Alas & Alack (1915, Universal). Director: Ida May Park. Scenario: Ida May Park. Cast: Cleo Madison, Lon Chaney (app. 15 min. si., b&w, 35 mm; NFTVA; LOC print).

Jane M. Gaines: "Traveling Women and Silent-Era World Film Distribution as Paradigms" (e.g., Gene Gauntier, Florence Turner, Marion E. Wong, Margaret Turnbull, Stephanie Socha)

Session 1: Traveling Women: Confronting Problems & Issues

How does the internationalism of the film industry and border-crossing of personnel impact practically on researching, constructing, and interpreting women's film history? What problems have women's film history researchers encountered?

Session Chair: Antonia Lant (New York University)

Monica Dall'Asta: "Challenges of Researching Worldwide Distribution + Pearl White Reception and Frieda Klug as Distributor"

Elaine Burrows: "Historical Overview of NFTVA/BFI Collection Development Policies as They Have Impacted on Gender and Nation Questions"

Clare Watson: "Pursuing Women Publicists from the UK to the USA"

Session 2: Gender and Nation: Transnationalizing Women's Film Histories

What are the conceptual/interpretative implications of national cinema histories and the existence of national archives for the construction of women's film history? Does nation exceed gender? What is the connection between gender, nation, and women as filmmakers? How far does putting a national box round filmmakers suppress (or obscure) their cross-national activities and relationships between filmmakers, film forms, and transnational influences?

Session Chair: Christine Gledhill (PI, Women's Film History Network—UK/Ireland)

Antonia Lant: "Women's Writings on Cinema as a Source of Questions of National Identity and Vice Versa: The Discoveries of The Red Velvet Seat"

Emma Sandon: "Reconfiguring British Cinema History's National Borders: Empire, Women, and Filmmaking"

Ruth Barton: "The Daughters of Erin Go to Hollywood: Occupational Mobility, Irish Women and Transnational Cinema"

Session 3: Historicizing the Recent Past: Digitization, Transnational Practices, & Future Histories

How do questions about women's filmmaking practice get reframed after Second Wave feminism and in the context of postfeminism? How far do new modes of digital production and distribution and global circulation impact on women's filmmaking, their gendered position in film industries, and their national affiliations? Do we research and write the histories of post-Second Wave women's movement filmmakers differently?

Session Chair: Emma Sandon (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Bette Gordon: "Changing Conditions of Women's Indie Film/Video Production and Finance from the 1970s until Today"

Drake Stutesman: "Preserving the Recent Past: The Women's Film Preservation Fund of NYWIFT"

Rosanna Maule: "Proposal for Developing a 'Virtual Archive': Women Filmmakers and Postfeminism at the Age of Multimedia Reproduction"

Session 4: Resources for Women's Film History: Current Progress and Future Development

What is the future of Women Film Pioneers' resource books/databanks/websites? How can different national projects relate to each other? How inevitable or desirable is the sound/silent divide currently in place? What strategies might be developed for extending research activity around post-sound and post-1970s women's filmmaking?

Session Chair: Nancy Friedland (Librarian for Media, Film Studies & Performing Arts, Butler Library, Columbia University)

Jane M. Gaines and Risa Karaviotis: "Women Film Pioneers Online Project Unveiling: Scope and Design + Meeting Challenges of Scholarship across National Borders"

Radha Vatsal: "Women Film Pioneers Online Project: New Challenge of Digital Research and 'Publication' for Scholars"

Clare Watson: "Women and Silent...