[Note on naming. I was involved in choosing the name ‘reel women’ in 2015. As I learnt more as a feminist, the fact that the name could have been read as trans-exclusionary became a big problem, in programming we always saught out films from trans and non-binary filmmakers, but the marjority of works came from cis-women filmmakers and that was one of the reasons I decided to move on from the project.]
Back in early 2015 Sarah McIntosh (who was shorts programmer at the Cambridge Film Festival) started talking about arranging regular free short film screenings focusing on female filmmaking at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse (a similar event, Queers in Shorts, had begun a few months beforehand). Sarah collected together all the feminist focused people who had worked and volunteered at the CFF, including myself, and the event was born.
The concept was v. simple, female directed short films, programmed around loose themes, monthly free screenings in the bar at the Picturehouse. we had no budget, so we had to beg films from filmmakers, borrow a projector from CFF and steal printing from our various workplaces. I worked as programmer on multiple events and eventually took over from Sarah as co-ordinator of the team and events. I will go into more detail on my sci-fi, animation, beauty and dance themed programmes in other posts. but one of my fav things were collaborating on the mini-retrospective of the work of Mania Akbari held at the Picturehouse that I helped curate. Another was one of our ‘best of’ programmes which screened at CFF and one of the films in the programme actually won the audience award at the festival!
I left the organisation in 2017, I loved the programming and working with a great group of people, but as things went on I got very frustrated working in the Cambridge film scene – where praise was freely given to our work, but often our work to build audiences were exploited by other orgs that actually had marketing budgets. and I was also fired from the Picturehouse for the teeniest protest against a film featuring a known abuser, so I felt uncomfortable in the cinema space and essentially providing the cinema with a ‘cool’ & ‘woke’ vibe through my unpaid work. The event continues to run in Cambridge, and I am very proud of the programmes I produced while I worked with the group, I learnt a lot about structuring programmes, about the lifespans of short films and found some really incredible films through endless vimeo searches.