Name/TitleWomen's Film & Video Distribution Catalogue
About this objectRing bound publication titled 'CiRCLeS: Womens Film + Video Distribution Catalogue, compiled and edited by Jenny Holland and Jane Harris. The contents are listed as follows:
- Introduction
- How to use the catalogue
- How to book and hire film and video
- Film and video by subject:
- Animation
- Arts
- Cultural Identity
- Early Women Film-Makers
- Family
- Health
- History. Memory
- Language. Form. Experimental
- The Law
- The Media
- Mythologies
- Protest & Resistance
- Science & Technology
- Sexual Politics
- Violence
- Work
- Packages
- A-Z list of film-makers
- A-Z list of titles
- A-Z subject index
- Catalogue/mailing list order form
MakerCiRCLeS
Date Made1987
Period1980s
Place MadeEngland, London
Medium and MaterialsInorganic, metal
Organic, paper
MeasurementsH: 212 x 172 x D: 35 mm
Subject and Association KeywordsFeminism, feminist movement
Subject and Association KeywordsFilm-making
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circles_(film_distributor):
Circles was a feminist film and video distribution network in the UK, which was set up out of a desire to distribute and screen women's films on their own terms. It was founded in 1979 by feminist filmmakers Lis Rhodes, Jo Davis, Felicity Sparrow and Annabel Nicolson, publishing a 1980 catalogue including about 30 films, and it closed in 1991, largely due to funding issues that also prompted the merger of Circles and Cinema of Women, which led to the formation of Cinenova. A previous funding crisis in 1987, when funding by Tower Hamlets council had been withdrawn, had been resolved with replacement funding from the British Film Institute.
According to Jenny Holland and Jane Harris, "Circles started in 1979, partly as a response to an Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition on experimental film. Feeling that their work on women's involvement in this field was being marginalised, the women on the exhibition committee withdrew their painstakingly researched work and issued an explanatory statement. In many ways, this research was the cornerstone of Circles, which went on to distribute the films by Alice Guy, Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, and Lois Weber which were to have been discussed in the exhibition." The statement, "Women and the Formal Film," was published in the "Film as Film" exhibition catalogue and acted as a manifesto for the distribution collective that emerged.
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeCatalogue
Object numberGWL-2023-100-2
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved