These are the chapters included in the book, with a short summary of each.

Introduction: Gender Politics as Collective Resilience (available online) 

The Introduction situates the six organizations within the broader context of cinematic practices aimed at social and political change through portable technology, government funding, and community outreach. The idea of feminist politics as social action informs the mandates of each organization. 

The chapter begins with an illustration of the project’s theoretical framework, which relies on feminist and queer theories and adopts participatory methods of knowledge production. This approach resonates with the anti-hierarchical and anti-institutional values of these organizations. It then places the case studies within the history of feminist movements and their diverse manifestations in local and transnational contexts, tracing a historical profile of each organization. The chapter ends with an illustration of the book’s structure, which comprises six chapters: ‘Opening Spaces for Women Through Counter-Media Strategies,’ ‘Women’s Cinema as Community Practice,’ ‘Changing Images, Creating Networks,’ ‘Inclusivity Beyond Borders,’ ‘The Virtual Life of Ephemera,’ and ‘Thinking Ahead: Counter-Archives for the Future.’

1. Opening Spaces for Women Through Counter-Media Strategies 

This chapter introduces the reader to the general context of research and situates the establishments of women’s film and video organizations within the climate of social utopianism of the 1970s and 1980s feminisms. Subsequently, it traces the history of the six case studies focused in the book.

The first part examines the role of these organizations in feminist and proto-queer movements. Drawing on Laura Mulvey and Temma Kaplan,  it emphasizes the radical and grassroots traits of feminism. This social utopianism finds echo in the historical involvement of women’s film and video organizations in the radical politics of the New Left and Counter Cinema. Their structures, inspired by 1960s counterculture and the Women’s Liberation Movement, are rooted in women-only feminist and lesbian communities that aimed at redefining social relations and modes of living based on their experiences of gender inequality.

The second  part of the chapter traces the origins of the six organizations within their respective geopolitical contexts, underlining their commitment to gender-based media activism. 

• Drac Màgic, founded in 1971 by a group of anti-Francoist activists that embraced cinema as an educational tool against censorship, was informed by a feminist perspective that became prominent within a few years.
• Women Make Movies (WMM), established in 1972, started in 1969 as a production resource for women, offering workshops and community screenings, before specializing in distribution in the mid-1970s. 
• Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV), launched in 1975 by a group of independent filmmakers, soon transitioned to a women-only center and expanded its production interests to a distribution company showcasing feminist works. 
• Leeds Animation Workshop (LAW), inaugurated in Leeds as a feminist collective in 1978, has since been producing and distributing animated films about gender-focused social issues. 
• bildwechsel, opened in 1979 as a media cooperative, in 1985 became a transnational umbrella organization for women+ artists that shares knowledge exchange and community support for artists, and hosts a vast archive of feminist and queer artworks. 
• Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir (CASdB), opened in 1982 by a group of activist filmmakers and intellectuals as an archive and a resource centre for women’s history on film and video, continues this mandate since its reopening in 2003 after a 10-year forced closure.

2. Women’s Cinema as Community Practice 

This chapter explores the community-based approach of feminist film and video This chapter explores the community-based approach of feminist film and video organizations that emerged during the Women’s Liberation Movement, emphasizing their anti-hierarchical and participatory nature. It stresses how these organizations, while inspired by pre-existing feminist and counter-media networks, also consolidated their own infrastructures and public activities. Among the women’s film and video organizations started during the 1970s and 1980s that followed the all-women collective model were, beside Women Make Movies (WMM), Vidéo Femmes, Iris Film, and several women’s film festivals. 

The chapter opens by foregrounding the contentious status of community in feminist theory, in debates that reflect historical tensions among different feminist groups such as, for instance, radical feminists, lesbian separatists, and Black feminists. It also addresses divisions that existed within the movement in North America and Western Europe, reinforced by local political and cultural contexts, and the role of lesbian activism and separatism in shaping all-women communities.

Applying this diversity of opinions about the concept of community to the structure of the six organizations, the chapter stresses how some of them were initially composed as social groupings including not exclusively women (e.g., GIV, Drac Màgic, LAW). The adherence of these organizations to community-based systems explains their adaptability to changing situations and viability as alternative platforms to both mainstream and independent cinematic contexts that disparage women.

3. Changing Images, Creating Networks 

This chapter is dedicated to the six organizations’ media practices. In general these rely on the belief in the revolutionary potential of portable technology for social This chapter is dedicated to the six organizations’ media practices, which share the belief in the revolutionary potential of portable technology for social action and change recurring in activist and guerrilla cinema from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. In situating the media mandates of these organizations within political activism, the chapter also underlines their articulation of feminist cinema’s double commitment to social debate and aesthetic innovation.

The chapter begins by contextualizing the radical experiments and interventions of feminist media in print, film, video production, and broadcasting. The six organizations examined in the book bring together a double commitment: on the one hand, to promoting feminist and LGBTQ cinematic works  through co-participatory techniques; on the other hand, to fostering creative and innovative forms and aesthetics through accessible and shared media.

The second part of the chapter further elaborates on the activist and co-participatory media strategies of these organizations, linked to transnational movements and avant-garde aesthetics that they developed within transnational circuits of radical cinema.

4. Inclusivity Beyond Borders 

This chapter explores the commitment to diversity and inclusivity of women’s film and video organizations, claiming that while they emerged in the disparaging era of Second-Wave feminism, since their foundation they have participated in transnational movements for decolonization, LGBTQ rights, and human rights.

The chapter examines the contribution of feminist media activism and of these organizations in particular to the deconstruction of hegemonic feminist discourses, embracing diversity in their media practices. These involvements, while varying depending on the feminist and queer politics at play in the areas where they operate, all address questions of identity politics from a relational and situated position.

In denouncing the problematic roots of the Women’s Liberation Movement, the chapter highlights three feminist paradigms that since the 1980s have both criticized and decentered feminism’s universalist focus on gender and woman. These are: transnational and decolonial feminism, intersectional feminism, and indigenous feminism, best exemplified in the writings of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and María Lugones, among others.

The chapter explains how the six women’s film organizations address inclusion in their media practices. All located in the Global North, these organizations have always privileged grassroots initiatives, personal connections, informal collaborations, and collaborative strategies to advance a positioned, inter-relational feminist praxis.

5. The Virtual Life of Ephemera (available online)

This chapter explores how women’s film and video organizations have adopted digital technology to advance their feminist and LGBTQ mandate. Digital tools such as social media and streaming platforms have enabled these organizations to maintain and extend their grassroots and collaborative media strategies. Yet digital technology constitutes less a watershed than a continuation of their feminist media practices. In repurposing existing methods through digital technology, these organizations have further assured their sustainability and consolidated their visibility in the public sphere. Furthermore, digital technology has facilitated the preservation and circulation of their films and videos and created a digital memory of their enduring contribution to moving image history. 

In detailing the integration of digital media by these organizations, this chapter illustrates their distance from the culture of connectedness reinforced by neoliberal and market-driven ideologies. Hence, even if some organizations have undergone challenges in embracing digital media and in keeping pace with technology, have seeked partnership with public institutions, they stay clear from the dematerialized labor ethics of late capitalism.

6. Thinking Ahead: Counter-Archives for the Future 

The final chapter focuses on the importance of digital and physical archives at a The final chapter focuses on the importance of digital and physical archives at a critical moment for these organizations, whose fortieth or fiftieth anniversary coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic amidst challenging conditions. 

These organizations’ response to the pandemic involved digital remediation and the online circulation of feminist and LGBTQ media works. Although these organizations are not focused on digital technology, they have effectively integrated webinar and streaming platforms into their practices during this period, maintaining their feminist potential at the interface of online and offline spaces. They offered numerous online curated programs, gradually resuming in-person events as restrictions eased. Their activities included online screenings, exhibitions, and collaborative curations, illustrating a balance between digital and physical presence.

Furthermore, these organizations’ repurposing of feminist media practices on digital platforms has corroborated their idiosyncratic, counter-archival approach to moving–image culture. The chapter closes with an appreciation of these organizations’ accessible and ethical approach to feminist media, which has facilitated a field research conducted mainly under pandemic restrictions.