“Wrath, Witches, and Wondrous Women”

Abstract

Responding to the widespread material loss of silent films today, this article constitutes a playful exercise in curating a selection of nonextant films directed, written, and produced by early women filmmakers. After an introduction to the exercise, which sets up the feminist and film curatorial stakes of such an endeavor, I present my thematically organized film program (curatorial statement and program notes) to the reader. Drawing together films by women who worked in Peru, Croatia, Egypt, China, Mexico, Poland, and the United States, I argue that curating lost films not only makes space for a more inclusive picture of women’s contributions to cinema history; this exercise is also a call for more imaginative approaches to feminist film and media curatorial practices.