Female Agency and Documentary Strategies

Boel Ulfsdotter is Reader in Film Studies at the Faculty of Humanities at Gothenburg University, Sweden. Her areas of research are rooted in theoretical perspectives on female subjectivity in visual and popular culture, with special focus on documentary cinema, visual style, and screen costume. She has also published on contemporary women’s power dressing, fashion exhibition practice, and screen costume. Boel Ulfsdotter’s latest scholarly publication is Documenting Fashion (2023), co-edited with Elena Caoduro. In 2018, Ulfsdotter co-edited a twin-volume on the topic of female authorship for Edinburgh University Press: Female Authorship and the Documentary Image, and Female Agency and Documentary Strategies. Anna Backman Rogers is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Gothenberg, Sweden.

That women are at the forefront of new documentary practices and forms should come as no surprise. Documentary, whether those writing its history have recognised it properly or not, has always had its female innovators, dating all the way back to Esfir Shub and Ruby Grierson. The focus on authorship, in relation to significant shifts, both technological and cultural, is useful and important especially considering how implicitly gendered discussions of authorship have been historically. But perhaps the most exciting contribution of this book is its feminist updating of activist media, another male dominated area of film/media studies, and one in which women’s contribution has been nothing short of profound. This volume writes the history of the latest transformations in documentary with women filmmakers from all over the world, and not just the global north, at the center. It serves as a corrective and a model for future attempts to narrate that history going forward.

• Preface Kate Nash Introduction Boel Ulfsdotter and Anna Backman RogersSection one: NEW MEDIA AND ACTIVISMChapter 1: KRISTOPHER FALLON: "The Pencil of Identity: Instagram as Inadvertent (Female) Autobiography"Chapter 2: CADENCE KINSEY: "Archetype and Authenticity: Reflections on Amalia Ulman’s Excellences and Perfections"Chapter 3: MONICA TITTON: "Blogging the Female Self: Authorship, Self-Performance and Identity Politics in Fashion Blogs"Section two: RELATIONALITY, SELFHOOD AND SUBJECTIVITIESChapter 4: GAIL VANSTONE: "‘Scriptrix Narrans’ – Digital Documentary Storytelling’s Radical Potential"Chapter 5: KIM MUNRO: "Hybrid Practices and Voice-Making in Contemporary Female Documentary Film" Chapter 6: KERREEN ELY-HARPER: "Record Keeping: Family Memories on Film – Rea Tajiri’s History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashig and Wisdom Gone Wild"Chapter 7: ANNA BACKMAN ROGERS: "Not Because My Heart Is Gone; Simply The Other Side": Francesca Woodman’s Relational and Ephemeral Subjectivity at the Limit of the Image"Chapter 8: CARLA MAIA: "Other Women: Thinking Class and Gender in Contemporary Interview: "Visualising Our Voices": Hong Kong Scholar and Film Director Vivian Wenli Lin, in Conversation With Boel Ulfsdotter"Section three: IDENTITY POLITICS OF DOCUMENTARYChapter 9: ANNA MISIAK: "From Visceral Style to Discourse of Resistance": Reading Alka Sadat’s Afghan Documentaries on Violence Against Women"Chapter 10: JOHN A. RILEY: "Documenting Georgia in Transition: The Films of Salome Jashi and Nino Kirtadze"Chapter 11: LIDIA MERAS: "Profession: Documentarist. Underground Documentary Making in Iran"Interview: "Reflecting Through Images": The Documentaries of Mercedes Alvarez by Linda Ehrlich