British Women's Amateur Film Production

Abstract

British women's amateur film practice contributes to the rapidly growing specialist field of amateur film studies and to broader cinematic trajectories and media history. Over almost 90 years women used evolving camera technologies—cine, video, and digital—to create visual stories about their lives and the world around them and to experiment with other genres, namely animation and fiction. Their visual practice intersects with wider societal changes and discloses how women negotiated aspects of changing lifestyles, attitudes, and opportunities. Their varied reasons for making and showing films, whether in imperial, postcolonial, or contemporary Britain, and during their years overseas, evidence self‐expression, creativity, and agency. Their informal perspectives differ from the dominant narratives of late imperialism which were mediated via documentary and newsreel productions. Women's amateur films depict interactions shaped by class, gender, and race and disclose subjectivities and perceptions that suggest their filmmakers' responses to changing circumstances, expectations, and notions of authority. Interrogating women's amateur films draws on cross‐archival research, identifies films from public and specialist collections and uses theoretical perspectives central to issues of identity, gender, race and status, national and (post‐)imperial history, visual politics, cinema history, and new media scholarship.