Women Behind the Lens: Global Women’s Cinema

Since the early days of cinema, women have taken part in filmmaking—as directors, screenwriters, editors, producers, and actresses—sometimes from the margins of the industry and sometimes as groundbreaking and innovative forces. However, over the years, women have faced numerous barriers: male-dominated institutions, limited funding, gender biases, and stereotypical perceptions that have restricted their creative space and the opportunities available to them.

Despite these challenges, many women have managed to develop original, bold, and intimate cinematic voices. Their films challenge the dominant assumptions of "the male gaze" and offer alternative storytelling methods, new points of view, and diverse gendered experiences. In recent decades, and especially in the 21st century, there has been a significant increase in the presence of women in the film industry, as well as growing public and critical recognition of their work. Female filmmakers from around the world—including from culturally and socially marginalized regions—contribute to a subversive, intimate, inquisitive, and thought-provoking cinematic language.

The seminar will explore the cinematic work of women and the unique ways in which they express their world through the medium of cinema. Through viewing, analysis, and discussion of films directed, written, or produced by women from around the globe, we will examine how women's voices are revealed and shaped in cinema. We will discuss questions of gender representation, female experiences, the body, and identity, as well as the social, cultural, and industrial challenges that women filmmakers face.

The seminar will combine theoretical reading with viewing and analysis of films, aiming to understand how women's cinema is not only a response to existing structures but also a mean of creating a new aesthetic and social language.