This study provides a meticulous account of the conditions for women filmmakers in relation to cultural movements, politics, and policy during the long 1970s. The time frame for this volume is from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Written in close dialog with archival methodologies, the book foregrounds women’s intersectional agency as facilitators of film cultures, as filmmakers but also in terms of their films to present new images of society. The authors identify new avenues for understanding how women’s creative practice emerged, which intersects with areas of influence beyond humanistic scholarship, including public policy, education, data and archival management, and political studies. By moving beyond “identity politics” or “embodied experiences” which, for good reason, have been the focus of much of feminist film studies, the contributors’ to this volume foregrounds the rich artistic and socio-political contexts, examining not only the works made, but also the networks of production, distribution, and dissemination that developed during the period. Women Filmmakers and the Welfare State: Transnational Film Cultures during the Long 1970s in Canada, Sweden, and Beyond delivers more than expected. It has been some time since the field has seen a book on women filmmakers with so much original archival material, and no other book has given us the comparative perspective we find here.Christoper Natzén, PhD. Research Officer, National Library of SwedenWomen Filmmakers and the Welfare State: Transnational Film Cultures in the Long 1970s in Canada, Sweden and Beyond provides you with a rich and diverse look into women’s film practice beyond the usual optics. By addressing the transnational connections between Canada and Sweden and film practices embedded in the various facets of the welfare state the collection of articles reveals both an intriguing film cultural undergrowth and opens up new perspectives and methods for further research.John Sundholm, Professor, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden.A remarkable achievement in scholarly collaboration and critical insight, Women Filmmakers and the Welfare State: Transnational Film Cultures in the Long 1970s in Canada, Sweden and Beyond sheds new light on the complex intersections of film production, negotiated cultural support, and professional networks during the heyday of welfare state reforms in Canada and Sweden. The volume traces a comparative and multifaceted approach to woman film history, highlighting overlooked spheres of action and agency in the long 1970s, while also raising urgent concerns about the threats to archival collections and cultural life today.Malin Wahlberg, Professor, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden. In times when public funding support to the arts are under attack, as a result of the welfare state being dismantled, this collection on women’s filmmaking and movements in Canada and Sweden during so-called long 1970s offers a much-needed reminder and urging. The many insightful essays – grasping both national and cross-national, organizational and individual examples – examine, compare, and explain the different, yet connected, state efforts that were made to support women’s film making, in the broadest sense, proving how such support led not only to the emergence of a number of prominent filmmakers, but also, to a widened, collaborative and inclusive film culture driven by women. In discussing the nationally specific as well as transnational mobility between the two countries, the essays help highlight the importance of the internationalist movement of 1970s feminist, queer, Indigenous, and post-colonial mobilizations, all while stressing how women’s film work has left few traces in physical and digital archives and in research – and how it is absolutely crucial to preserve their work and to write their histories.Louise Wallenberg, Professor, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden.
