Wellywood Woman

Ariel Dougherty Interview by  Alexandra Hidalgo You have a long history of making films and supporting women filmmakers, what made you interested in the intersections between the moving image and feminism? It was the spring of 1969. I was with 100 college-mates in the middle of an eleven day sit-in in our college administration building, when a recent graduate brought several films from Community Newsreel. One of the films was  Make Out , but another of the films really got to me. A woman was ironing. Suddenly I started to see the preconceived roles we women were expected to fulfill. They were vastly different from my own ideas of myself. Already I was teaching kids filmmaking. I began to see that I could tell our own stories on film. If today it is unusual to be a woman behind the camera, back in the 1970s when you were a pioneer feminist filmmaker, it was outright revolutionary for you to pick up a camera. Can you tell us what made you want to do so and what the exp

by Corrina Antrobus Corrina is the founder and director of the Bechdel Test Fest , ‘an ongoing celebration of films that pass the Bechdel Test’. Plenty of stats will remind you that women are not quite out of the woods in the search for better rep in film. But hey, new year, new hope and here’s to new ways of thinking that, actually, you  can  help chip away at the patriarchy. Here’s just five resolutions you can apply immediately in the plight for a more female friendy cinema. 1. Go to see a female-led movie on its opening weekend Opening weekend counts. Cinemas will keep a movie on their screens as long as people are turning up and putting their bums on seats. It’s a supply and demand system like any other business. If you want more female-led movies in the cinema, don’t just talk about it – buy a ticket and prove you want them there. Here at BTF we announce the female-led movie releases on our Facebook page and Twitter every Friday, so don’t say we didn’t tell you