Invisibles e insumisas / Invisi'veis e insubmissas: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television, 1970-1980

Our project will produce the first ever 'history from below' account of women working in the Portuguese and Spanish industries in the 1970s, by focussing on below-the-line roles, such as editing, costume design and production management, and paying attention to the ways these roles criss-crossed between film and television. We focus on the 1970s, when the ending of fascist dictatorship in both political contexts shaped Portugal and Spain in ways that are productively comparable but far from identical. While Portugal's dictatorship was overthrown by a left-wing coup triggered by colonial war in Africa, Spain's transition was negotiated after Franco died in his bed. Subsequent legislation changes in both countries permitted women to work outside the home, and this was the point at which they joined crucial below-the-line film and television professions in significant numbers. Indeed, some roles, such as editing and casting, were performed almost exclusively by women. Below-the-line jobs are usually seen as replaceable, and their contribution to a finished film or TV programme is of little note. While scholars have already paid attention to the very few women in above-the-line roles in the period, we will examine the women who have provided these alternative forms of low-visibility leadership in greater numbers. They have so far escaped the eye of scholars, because above-the-line roles, particularly in film, confer prestige, attract international recognition and promote agency. Our project will thus also add the critical transnational dimensions of Spanish and Portuguese history to current worldwide, predominantly Anglophone, debates on women in the film and television industries today. In the context of film, our first area of impact is, therefore, increasing intercultural knowledge of women in world cinema, through subtitling, streaming and screenings. As part of the Exeter 'Subtitling World Cinema' project (SWC), we select 6 key feminist films of the 1970s from Portugal and Spain that are currently inaccessible to Anglophone audiences. We will secure copyright to subtitle them into English for the first time, make them freely streamable, and screen them to wide publics. This will democratize access to world culture, increase inter-cultural knowledge and allow Portuguese and Spanish film to be more fully part of current #metoo debates about film and feminism today. Our second area of impact, working on both film and television, will engage future professionals by working with film festivals in each country and with Portugal's Plano Nacional de Cinema, and Spain's Cine y Educación (Academia), both Department of Education projects for schools. Through screenings, roundtables and workshops, we will bring the key decade of the 1970s to the attention of the current generation and address the problem that, while there is c. 65% female participation in media studies University departments in Portugal and Spain, this yields only 20% female participation in industries that still resist their incorporation. By championing leading women in still largely invisible below-the-line roles, including in television, we engage with wider debates, and specific feminist activism campaigns including Spain's Association of Women Filmmakers, CIMA's #masmujeres and the Berlin-based Proquote-Film organization, promoting female capacity in all areas of the industry. Using archival research, oral history, film and television analysis, memory studies and comparative studies, this project will yield two co-authored research monographs, two edited volumes of interviews, one project conference (with published proceedings) and one conference linked to the commemorations of the Portuguese Revolution 1974 (with a journal special issue). Moreover, it will disseminate 6 subtitled films and a series of awareness raising events at 9 UK, Portugal and Spain festivals including our partner festival VIVA, curated by HOME (Manchester).