Editors’ Introduction: Why We Curate Feminist Film Archives

Abstract

What do we, as feminists, need right now—from cinema, from archives, from our communities? How can filmmaking, film festivals, and social movements of the past inspire or befuddle us today? And what is at stake in selecting and presenting archival works by women to create new forms of community? Whether we hold space together in a movie theater or a virtual screening room, we cannot help but draw connections between the unfinished past and the open-ended present. Forging these links is the rallying cry of the feminist film curator. In this tenth-anniversary double issue of Feminist Media Histories, we argue that everyone can contribute to the collective project of archival film curating. Unrealized feminist histories pave the way to unforeseen social possibilities. In that spirit, please join our cabal of feminist archival film curators!