Feminist Film Collective Cinemien

At Eye Filmmuseum, Gerdien Smit uses oral history to investigate the early years of Feminist Film Collective Cinemien, which was founded in Amsterdam during the heyday of the second feminist wave.

Cinemien felt there were too few women working in film production, distribution and screening. Through the acquisition and distribution of women’s films, they wanted not only to improve the position of women directors, but also to counterbalance the stereotypical female image in mainstream films, and to help raise awareness of women’s film culture.

The video recordings of the interviews and transcripts will be stored in Eye’s catalog and digital archive, and will be available to all at the Eye Collection Center’s center of excellence, the Eye Study. The recordings will be made public in mid-2024, well before the 50th anniversary in 2025, so that researchers, students, journalists, filmmakers and enthusiasts will have access to new source material for their work.