The Centre for Canadian Studies invites you to two events surrounding the topic of “the international contexts of women’s film cultures during the 1970s”, one film screening at FilmForm, Kungsholmen (25 April, 18.00-19.30, see https://www.filmform.com/calendar-upcoming/) and a symposium (26 April, 10:00-16:00, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Filmhuset).

Foto: Algkalv, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The project builds on our long-standing research collaboration, which most recently has led to the publication of New Arctic Cinemas: Media Sovereignty and the Climate Crisis (University of California Press, 2023). The book has several chapters that connect Canada and Scandinavia. The aim is to bring brings together scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners with an interest in what we are calling the “long 1970s” and who share an interest in women’s film- and video-making, especially documentary, experimental, alternative and non-fiction works. 

The “long 1970s,” conceived as approximately 1967-1986, was a time where women’s filmmaking greatly expanded in Europe and North America, though most often through collectives, co-ops, activist networks, publicly funded television, and (arm’s-length) government organizations. This period was also when many women’s film festivals emerged. The objective is to explore the film culture surrounding this emergence, examining not only the works made, but also the networks of production, distribution, and dissemination that emerged as a constituent part of the period. Starting from the rich film culture contexts of Sweden during the “long 1970s” period, and the significant research undertaken to date in that context,  this project is internationally oriented and comparative in nature, which includes the film culture contexts of two welfare states, Sweden and Canada.

The international contexts of Swedish and Canadian women film practitioners are interesting for a number of reasons. These include the two countries’ shared concern for amplifying women’s voices; the intersection between feminist media works and the environmental movement; the public emphasis on gender-equality efforts; the commitment to foreign aid programs where film and television played a large role; the self-imagination as “neutral” during the Cold War; and the era being one where works by Indigenous and immigrant women, as well as queer practitioners, began to gain visibility. A comparative frame will allow the works produced in, and the film cultures of,  both nation states to be considered beyond the confines of national cinema/media histories, and to bring attention to the works beyond their countries of production and to expand an internationally oriented film methodology approach. 

There are some examples from the time period of actual international collaborations between Sweden and Canada that took place. That includes the “Sweden-Canadian Co-Production” initiative (1969-1971), where some of the films produced were was part of the National Film Board of Canada/Office national du film’s Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle program, an attempt to get media into the hands of the people. There were also collaborations between public diplomacy media production initiatives, such as those sponsored by the Swedish Institute and the NFB/ONF. In Canada, the NFB/ONF also founded Studio D in 1974, a studio dedicated to films made by and about women, while SVT2 offered expanded opportunities and programming, especially for women documentarians, from its start in 1969. Outside arm’s length government organizations or publicly funded television, collectives and organizations such as FilmForm, Filmverkstan, FilmCentrum, BioFem, Tjejfilm, and Svenska Kvinnors Filmförbund in Sweden, and Vidéographe (Montréal), Vidéo tiers monde (Montréal), Women in Focus (Vancouver), Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center (CFMDC, Toronto), and Vtape (Toronto), in Canada worked to provide production and distribution of films by women. The strategies and approaches used by these organizations share similarities and differences that are ripe for exploration.