Occupying an imaginative space
March 4, 2009
Even the most dedicated cineastes often struggle to name 10 women filmmakers in response to an impromptu ambush. This is because filmmaking has almost entirely been seen as a masculine enterprise. The intention here is not to disregard the enormous achievements of women in all fields of the filmmaking craft. All evidence suggests, especially in the last decade or so, that women are increasingly occupying spaces that were previously considered exclusively domains of men.
Therefore, it is surprising that despite their pedigree and excellence and increasingly substantial contribution to the craft of filmmaking, they have occupied very little imaginative space in the psyche of the film viewer. Even today, it is far easier to spark furious debate and discussion on the films of Jean-Luc Godard than on the work of women filmmakers such as Agnes Varda and Sally Potter .
This failure to occupy the imaginative space is a peculiar predicament. On the one hand, we have more women filmmakers than ever before yet they are only a footnote in the dominant canonical history of film. No woman has ever won the Oscar for Best Director in the 81 years since the conception of the Academy Awards. It is not to say that the Oscars are the pinnacle of cinematic achievement or confer a greater legitimacy to any body of work. But it is only evidence of how hard it has been for woman filmmakers to find equal representation in mainstream cinema.
Thus, anybody who is dismissive of the idea of a women’s film festival must put into perspective the lack of proportion between achievement and recognition. The battle has not been won. The purpose is not only to positively discriminate in favour of filmmakers of a particular gender. The idea is also to challenge the hegemony of mass culture that has effortlessly seamed into the status quo of society reproducing ideas not only of patriarchy, but of class and power.
In its breathtaking range of films, the 2nd women’s film festival has the possibility of not only broadening the horizons of those who love film, but also posing as a site of contestation of the dominant narratives that today pervade our lives.
This piece was published in Mise en Scene, the journal of the 2nd Women’s Film Festival in Chennai.
