Scottish Documentary Institute: 50/50+ Women Direct
Guest Curator
Oct 2019 - Feb 2020
Currently in Scotland, 1 in 6 documentaries are directed by women. The Scottish Documentary Institute’s 50/50+ Women Direct campaign is aimed at revolutionising the film industry to support, nurture and encourage more women to make films and to re-define how life represented on our screens. It’s about moving away from looking at the world through a male lens and re-dressing the gender balance.
Launched in 2019, the campaign draws on the foundation of women in documentary filmmaking, honouring those that have gone before to inspire filmmakers now. I was asked to curate an event in the luxe Scotsman Picturehouse cinema raising awareness of women who have pioneered documentary techniques and subjects yet have often been overlooked in comparison to their male peers.
For We Had To Do It: The Women Making Scotland’s Documentaries I curated and guided the audience through a series of clips from archive and contemporary documentaries exploring how women in business, in the home and internationally have been portrayed on film over the last 100 years, and the difference it makes when women are in charge of the storytelling.
By screening films from filmmakers like Ruby Grierson (sister of ‘Father of Documentary’ John Grierson), Sarah Erulkar, Jenny Gilbertson, Rosie Gibson and Yasmin Fedda, the aim was to spark discussion which certainly happened in the post-screening blether I chaired with Yasmin and SDI’s Noe Mendelle.
IMAGES: Scottish Documentary Institute