Female Filmmakers and Feminism in the Media – FEMME

Female Filmmakers and Feminism in the Media (FEMME) is a 4-year project that aims to determine whether the growing number of women filmmakers and showrunners is contributing to the transformation of traditional gender roles both on screen and within the film and television industries. It will explore to what extent their experiences and works are informed by contemporary feminist discourses or, conversely, provide an opportunity to further and even interrogate feminist history and theory. FEMME relies on a multidisciplinary methodology (aesthetics, cultural studies, economics, history, sociology) to examine the cultural, aesthetic and political changes (or lack thereof) that women filmmakers and producers bring about within the media industries and popular culture in general. The project emphasizes the aim of feminism—that is, promoting equal opportunity for women—and points out the central tenets of gender and queer studies. It shows that feminism is not a monolithic theory but a place of diversity, debate and sometimes even discord within different contexts (ethnic, racial, cultural, national, etc.). Consortium members will thus observe the circulations of, and interactions between, various feminist sensibilities (post-feminism, intersectional feminism, materialist feminism, etc.) within British, French and US-American cinema and television.
FEMME will chronicle women’s professional trajectories as filmmakers and showrunners to identify systemic causes of success and failure. Their films will provide first-hand material to rethink feminism in the wake of #MeToo and case studies of circulation on social media, in festivals and on streaming platforms. FEMME will look at the sociocultural and economic contexts of women’s film productions through a comparative approach that is particularly suited to the consortium members’ expertise. Its deliverables include academic events, open-access publications and cultural productions (a database recording women directors’ experiences in the industry and relation to feminism; an educational short film resulting from the collaboration between a woman filmmaker and academics); the project will also promote community engagements (e.g. public screenings) and seek exchanges with professionals (radio, festival organizers) to increase the collection of data and the circulation of the consortium members’ findings.
FEMME’s consortium is constituted of 15 scholars in British, French and US-American film and television studies, from six European universities (Le Mans U., Toulouse Jean Jaurès U., U. Paul-Valéry Montpellier, Exeter U., Balearic Islands U., Warwick U.), and one private partner (Les ateliers du féminisme populaire). They will collaborate on four working packages: Women Screenwriters, Directors and Producers in Film and Television History (WP1), Feminist Film Theory and Women's Cinema (WP2), Promoting and Valorizing Women Filmmakers (WP3), and Filming for Gender Equality (WP4). The first three work packages are organized according to the industry’s production-distribution-exhibition structure, each privileging a specific methodological approach (film and television history, formal analysis, sociology and economics); these are complemented by a fourth work package devoted to filmmaking. The project’s main ambitions are to stimulate research on women in the film and television industries and to dialogue with industry players themselves in order to further the cause of gender equality.