Independent Miss Craigie: Narration and the Archive in a Documentary Biopic

Abstract

This article explores the process of making a documentary about Jill Craigie which drew, in particular, on the collection of her papers at the Women's Library and on documents belonging to Craigie and her family. Independent Miss Craigie (2021) seeks to examine the scope and synergies of film-making and politics in a career which encompassed independent production, journalism, broadcasting, television and writing. Our documentary aims to evoke the tensions between Craigie's own (rather diverse) accounts of her career, the evidence of it in her papers and in the contemporary reception of her work. This article about the making of the film provides space to reflect on how archival materials can be used to construct a narrative of a woman director's career. In doing so, it highlights the inevitable gaps and elisions in archival sources and, indeed, in the interpretation of Craigie's films and come to some conclusions about Craigie's disparaging attitude to her own work in later life.