I produced a list of twenty movies with some entries pushing at the edges of a definition of SF (too much fantasy content – I now concede that Wonder Woman is not really SF). As part of the course I collated a list of women-directed SF with the support of respondents on social media and students in my classes. For example, we were denied rights to screen Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995), one of the most accessible and recognised SF films that is known to be directed by a woman. I discovered how challenging it was to locate and get the rights to screen SF movies directed by women. In 2019 I taught a course at Manchester’s independent arts venue HOME on Women in Science Fiction. Kathryn Bigelow on the set of Strange Days There are comparatively few women-directed SF films, and it has taken me far longer than it should have to build up a list that is even close to comprehensive (see end of post for current list). Incidentally, Alison Peirse‘s edited collection Women Make Horror – where my Prevenge chapter is published – is a major influence on this project as the book essentially analyses and rethinks how women-directed genre cinema has been received and presented by (male) media critics and scholars. Alarmingly, my forthcoming chapter analysing Alice Lowe’s Prevenge (2016) as medical horror will be my first publication to feature a woman-directed movie.
But I am often restricted to male-written and male-directed texts for my teaching and research despite my gender-specific specialism. I am a science fiction (SF) scholar with a specific interest in the representation of women scientists, and religion and science on screen. It’s because so few women have been able to make films that this festival exists.” This is a depressing explanation that is still enragingly relevant to today’s industry. As the blurb for one of the earliest women’s film festivals, ‘ The Women’s Event’ at Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) in 1972, remarks: “A festival of men’s films would be simply absurd. The range of films produced by women across nations, genres, and styles should make a pigeonholing by gender farcical, but curated programmes and festivals celebrating women directors are often the only way that these films are made available for public viewing. Women directors should not just be the subject of special screenings and seasons to highlight their place in an industry that is still dominated by men. Women-made cinema is often pulled together and compared as if it is a genre – distinctive because of its creator’s gender identity rather than its content. – Rachel Talalay, director of Tank Girl (1995) I felt like I was gonna make this female action picture and we were going to kick through the glass ceiling and that was going to be that.
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