University of Glasgow, 29 June-1 July 2019
Jill Craigie: documentary and feminist film practices
The panel presents work undertaken as part of the AHRC-funded project, Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer. We explore Craigie’s film work, contextualising her career and producing both written and film responses to this body of work. Thus, the panel encompasses creative, critical and historical dimensions of feminist filmmaking. Yvonne Tasker discusses Craigie’s first film as director, Out of Chaos, approaching this documentary work about modern art in terms of an opposition between realism and modernism. Sadie Wearing discusses the distinctive formal, political and production/distribution strategies of To Be A Woman, Craigie’s 1951 film arguing for equal pay. In their paper, Lizzie Thynne discuss their use of documentary narration to produce a feminist film that engages with Craigie’s attempts to bring a feature on women’s suffrage struggle to the screen. Collectively the contributors reject the view that Craigie’s career is interesting as an exemplar of the failure of women in the post-war film industry; although we acknowledge the challenges and obstacles Craigie undoubtedly faced we seek rather to bring her achievements in feminist filmmaking into view.