Cinenova: Reproductive Labour

There is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man and there is no reason why she cannot master every technicality of the Art

 – Alice Guy, 1913¹

This quotation from French film pioneer Alice Guy (1873–1968) adorns numerous texts related to the history of the distribution of feminist film in the UK. An accomplished yet neglected figure, history’s omission of Guy and other film-makers has fuelled the need to critically reconsider histories of cinema, which are currently dominated by male film-makers. The recent exhibition ‘Reproductive Labour’ at the Showroom, London provided an extraordinary opportunity to explore the collection of films, videos and ephemera of feminist distributor Cinenova and the challenge to film and video history that the collection represents.

The extensive collection covers 500 works made by women from 1913 to 2000: from other notable female pioneers such as Germaine Dulac and Lois Weber in the 1910s and 1920s up to film and video works made in the 1980s and 1990s, and ranges from short works to feature films, documentaries, experimental films and videos as well as an extensive paper archive of articles, posters and correspondence. Together these describe a history of discussion, cultural exchange and advocacy for ‘a record of women’s lives and passions’, as an early statement by the UK distributor Circles put it.² The first feminist film distributor in the UK, Circles was established in 1979 by the film-makers Lis Rhodes, Tina Keane and Annabel Nicolson and the writer and curator Felicity Sparrow, and it marked the beginning of feminist film distribution in Britain. It was followed a few years later by the formation of Cinema of Women, giving the work of many women film and video artists a visibility and support previously denied them. Both intended to redress the neglect of women film-making by collectively supporting them through distribution, education and advocacy. Due to financial constraints, these two organisations merged in 1991 to create Cinenova, which is still working today.

Documentary work in the Cinenova collection includes early films such as Kay Mander’s Homes for the People (1945) – commissioned by the Labour Party and the now defunct British newspaper the Daily Herald – and Jill Craigie’s To Be a Woman (1951), an independently produced film about women’s employment, as well as highly influential films such as Women of the Rhondda (1972), made collaboratively by Mary Capps, Mary Kelly, Margaret Dickinson, Esther Ronay, Humphrey Trevelyan and Susan Shapiro, some of whom were also involved in making Nightcleaners (1972–75). Feature films range from Jacqueline Audry’s erotic Olivia (made in France in 1951), adapted from Dorothy Bussy’s autobiographic novel, to Yvonne Rainer’s The Man Who Envied Women (1985) and Privilege (1990, both made in the US), as well as independent features made in Austria, Germany, Australia and the UK.³

With the help of members of the Cinenova Working Group, an advisory group who are responsible for the Showroom exhibition and continued operation of Cinenova, we’ve selected eight video clips to contextualise and discuss some aspects of the organisation.⁴

Special thanks to Emma Hedditch at the Cinenova Working Group for her invaluable assistance in gathering the film excerpts and permissions used in this piece. To learn more about their work, visit metamute.org for Mira Mattar's extended interview with Hedditch and Marina Vishmidt.