FEMCINE: Cine de mujeres y nuevas formas de representación en el campo cinematográfico chileno

Abstract

The Santiago FEMCINE Women's Film Festival is a unique event of its kind in Chile. Created in 2011 by a team of women leaders in the field, it seeks to disseminate and recognize films made by and about women, making their work in the local field of film production more visible. Through its programming, meeting spaces and labour strategies, the festival has contributed to a new positioning of women in the Chilean field as well as to the reconstruction of the cultural memory of a kind of cinema that often remains unrecognized. Based on the systematization of the festival's archives, participant observation and oral testimonies of its organizers, this article gives an account of the role of the festival in the promotion of particular forms of work and ways of understanding women's cinema in Chile. The article considers the political and cultural positioning of FEMCINE, which articulates its programming strategies with its particular forms of collaborative work. It reflects on the ways in which women's film festivals have allowed the promotion and reflection on films made by and about women, as well as the role of women's organizations in the exhibition and construction of new ways of understanding female work, from an inclusive feminist perspective.