Activating the Archive: Feminism and German Women’s Film Heritage, 2010–2020

Abstract:This article uses a case study approach to analyze current German practice with respect to women’s film heritage. A sketch of the contemporary German film-archival landscape is followed by a brief survey of women’s film in the curatorial program of the Deutsche Kinemathek, focusing specifically on the 2019 Berlinale Retrospective Selbstbestimmt: Perspektiven von Filmemacherinnen (Self-determined: Perspectives from women filmmakers). National film heritage practice is compared with approaches across feminist institutions and projects, including festivals, feminist and queer archives, and one-off events; approaches from both contexts are then situated in relation to the place of films by women in federal digitization policy and practice. Analysis of two short films returns the focus to the notion of a self-determined film history underpinning the 2019 retrospective; tensions are explored between the feminist teleology that term implies and a curatorial practice of intersectional gender performance that is evident in many of the feminist initiatives discussed.