Histories of now: listening to women in British film

Abstract

ABSTRACT The research project ‘Calling the Shots: Women and contemporary film culture in the UK, 2000–2015’ investigates contemporary women's film history through two primary routes: the statistical analyses of the numbers of women in six key above-the-line professions (director, writer, producer, executive producer, cinematographer and editor), and interviews with 50 women in those same roles (by August 2018 we had interviewed 58). This paper focuses specifically on the permutations of the interview process for constructing women's film history in the contemporary period. Taking into consideration the theoretical, methodological and political issues at stake in recording oral histories of working women filmmakers, we contemplate the consequences of collecting and writing history that is still in medias res.