The Women’s Film Preservation Fund Crosses the Atlantic with 1970s Classics of Feminist Filmmaking

The Women’s Film Preservation Fund Crosses the Atlantic with 1970s Classics of Feminist Filmmaking

A year ago, an email arrived in our Women’s Film Preservation Fund mailbox from Tamara Anderson, Cinema Curator at the Barbican Centre in London, who had discovered our 2015 Carte-blanche series at MoMA, Women Writing the Language of Cinema. Would we curate a smaller series, focusing just on Second Wave Feminist films, for their multi-arts celebration Art of Change? What has resulted, Artists and Activists: Second Wave Feminist Filmmakers, will screen as a series over Saturday and Sunday, June 2-3 at the Barbican.  Continue reading The Women’s Film Preservation Fund Crosses the Atlantic with 1970s Classics of Feminist Filmmaking

<i>Camerawoman Angela Murray Gibson Films Herself into History, 1921-1925</i>: Marsha Gordon and Buckey Grimm

Camerawoman Angela Murray Gibson Films Herself into History, 1921-1925: Marsha Gordon and Buckey Grimm

Angela Murray Gibson, a silent era filmmaker receives due attention at Orphan Film Symposium’s line-up this April 11th – 14th, 2018 at the Museum of Moving Image. That Ice Ticket (1921), a recent NYWIFT Women’s Film Preservation Fund and Kino Lorber preservation, will screen on April 13th as part of the presentation, Camerawoman Angela Murray Gibson Films Herself into History, 1921-1925. Here, its presenters Marsha Gordon and Buckey Grimm offer some insights into this distinguishing filmmaker and her broader mark on American cinema. Continue reading Camerawoman Angela Murray Gibson Films Herself into History, 1921-1925: Marsha Gordon and Buckey Grimm

Trailblazing Through the Decades: Jessie Maple (1980s)

Trailblazing Through the Decades: Jessie Maple (1980s)

Jessie Maple is the first black woman to join the union of International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television (IATSE) in New York. Her book, How to Become a Union Camerawoman , is an instructional guide illustrating the obstacles that she endured to get into the union. It details the court case she initiated to fight discrimination after she became a member. Continue reading Trailblazing Through the Decades: Jessie Maple (1980s)

The Brookside Women’s Club of Harlan County

The Brookside Women’s Club of Harlan County

In 1973 the 13-month Brookside Strike brought almost 200 workers to battle Eastover Coal Company’s Brookside Mine and Prep Plant, a company owned by Duke Power. When filmmaker Barbara Kopple traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, the resulting Academy award-winning documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) captured a historic story. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February 25th at UnionDocs.
Continue reading The Brookside Women’s Club of Harlan County

One Big Union: A History of the Wobblies

One Big Union: A History of the Wobblies

Many have never heard of “Wobblies” or the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), but in the early 1900s, The Wobblies were laborers working in a variety of fields, who joined the movement which became known as “industrial unionism” under the IWW organization and they made headlines.

70 plus years following the founding of IWW, filmmakers Deborah Shaffer and Stewart Bird came together to bring the story of early American industrial radical labor reform back into the spotlight. Their documentary, The Wobblies (1979), shows the relevance of this history that still holds true today. The WFPF will screen the film at UNDO on January 28. Continue reading One Big Union: A History of the Wobblies

The WFPF Screens Four Experimental Films at MoMA’s “To Save and Project” Festival on January 22

The WFPF Screens Four Experimental Films at MoMA’s “To Save and Project” Festival on January 22

The Women’s Film Preservation Fund: Four Experimental Films will screen January 22nd in The Museum of Modern Art’s annual festival, To Save and Project.  The four recently preserved films by Barbara Hammer, Victoria Hochberg, Peggy Ahwesh, and Sheila Paige, all carry a common thread of movement towards a future from the past.  WFPF Co-Chair Ann Deborah Levy gives us a preview. Continue reading The WFPF Screens Four Experimental Films at MoMA’s “To Save and Project” Festival on January 22