Feminist Cinema

Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed (and optionally produced too) by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied.

It is also a variety of topics bundled together to create the work of women in film. This can include women filling behind the scene roles such as director, cinematographer, writer, and producer while also addressing the stories of women and character development through screenplays (on the other hand, films made by men about women are instead called Woman's film).

Renowned female directors include Alice Guy-Blaché, film pioneer and one of the first film directors, Agnès Varda, the first French New Wave director, Yulia Solntseva, the first woman to win the Best Director Award at Cannes Film Festival (1961), Lina Wertmüller, the first woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (1977), Barbra Streisand, the first woman to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Director (1983), Jane Campion, the first woman to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes Film Festival (1993), and Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director (2009), along with many other female directors from around the world such as Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, Lois Weber, Leni Riefenstahl, Mary Harron, Icíar Bollaín, Aparna Sen, Sofia Coppola, Kira Muratova, Patty Jenkins, Nancy Meyers, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman, Catherine Breillat, Ava DuVernay, Lucrecia Martel, Lynne Ramsay, Greta Gerwig, Rakhshān Banietemad, Claudia Weill and Julie Dash. Many successful cinematographers are also women, including Margarita Pilikhina, Maryse Alberti, Reed Morano, Rachel Morrison, Halyna Hutchins and Zoe White.

Women's cinema recognizes women's contributions all over the world, not only to narrative films but to documentaries as well. Recognizing the work of women occurs through various festivals and awards, such as the Cannes Film Festival, for example.

"Women's cinema is a complex, critical, theoretical, and institutional construction", Alison Butler explains. The concept has had its fair share of criticisms, causing some female filmmakers to distance themselves from it in fear of being associated with marginalization and ideological controversy.

Famous women in film history

Silent films

Alice Guy-Blaché was a film pioneer and the first female director. Working for the Gaumont Film Company in France at the time that the cinema was being invented, she created ''La Fée aux Choux'' (1896). The dates of many early films are speculative, but ''La Fée aux Choux'' may well be the first narrative film ever released. She served as Gaumont's head of production from 1896 to 1906 and ultimately produced hundreds of silent films in France and the United States.

In Sweden, Anna Hofman-Uddgren was that country's first female film maker—producing the silent film '' Stockholmsfrestelser'' in 1911. She also acted in the film. However, Ebba Lindkvist directed the short drama, ''Värmländingarna'', which premièred in Sweden on 27 October 1910, thus technically making her the first woman film maker, and chronologically, the second ever female feature film director in the world, after Alice Guy-Blaché.

Luise Fleck was an Austrian film director, and has been considered the second ever female feature film director in the world, after Alice Guy-Blaché. In 1911 Luise Fleck directed ''Die Glückspuppe''.

Elvira Notari is the first Italian woman director to make a film. Notari's first films are ''Maria Rosa di Santa Flavia'', ''Carmela la pazza'', ''Bufera d'anime'', all made in 1911.

Helen Gardner, a Vitagraph Studios player who had won acclaim for her portrayal of Becky Sharp in the 1910 version of '' Vanity Fair'', was the first film actor, male or female, to form her own production company, The Helen Gardner Picture Players. Gardner’s first production was ''Cleopatra'' (1912), one of the first American full-length films.

In 1913 Russian filmmaker Olga Preobrazhenskaya began directing films in the "Timan and Reingardt" studio. She is the first Russian woman director. Her first work as a director was the 1916 film ''Miss Peasant'' based on the work of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin.

American-born director, Lois Weber was coached and inspired by Guy-Blaché and found success in creating silent films. Weber is well known for her films ''Hypocrites'' (1915), ''The Blot'' (1921), and ''Suspense'' (1913). Weber's films often focus on difficult social issues. For instance, her film ''Where Are My Children? (1916)'' addresses the controversial issues of birth control and abortion. And she questioned the validity of capital punishment in ''The People vs. John Doe'' (1916).

Mabel Normand was another significant early female filmmaker. She started as an actress and became a producer-writer-director in the 1910s, working on the first shorts Charlie Chaplin did as The Tramp at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. She further collaborated with Sennett on other Keystone films and, during the late 1910s and early 1920s, she had her own movie studio and production company. Other notable actresses who became directors include Grace Cunard and Nell Shipman.

Women screenwriters were highly sought after in the early years of the cinema. Frances Marion, Anita Loos, and June Mathis all had successful careers in the silent and early-sound eras. Mathis was also the first female executive in Hollywood.

Classical Hollywood

As the American cinema became a highly commercialized industry in the 1920s and its content became more and more conventionalized, the opportunities for women producers and directors became fewer and fewer. By the time sound arrived in the US in 1927 and the years immediately after, women's roles behind the camera were largely limited to scriptwriters, costume designers, set decorators, make-up artists, and the like. And the industry's implementation of self-censorship in the form of the Hays Code in 1934 meant that topics such as birth control and abortion were taboo. Dorothy Arzner was the only woman director to survive in this unfriendly environment. She did so by producing well made but formally rather conventional films. Nevertheless, it is possible to trace feminist elements in her films. Film critics find her film, ''Dance, Girl, Dance'', about two women struggling to make it in show business, to be particularly interesting from a feminist perspective. When the film was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry, it was noted that "The dancers, played by Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball, strive to preserve their own feminist integrity, while fighting for their place in the spotlight and for the love of male lead Louis Hayward." Beyond ''Dance, Girl, Dance'', Arzner also worked with some of Hollywood's most formidable actresses—including Katharine Hepburn in ''Christopher Strong'' (1933) and Joan Crawford in ''The Bride Wore Red'' (1937).

First woman to direct a film noir, Ida Lupino, is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. She is best known for directing ''The Hitch-Hiker''. Ida Lupino is also famous for her work as an actress.

Experimental and avant-garde cinema

The experimental and avant-garde cinema is the genre considered to be closer to women filmmakers and one that also advances women themes. Annette Kuhn, for instance, noted such special affinity by citing that low investments of money and 'professionalism' have meant that it is more open than the mainstream film industry for women. Both Pam Cook and Laura Mulvey also noted an alignment and alliance of experimental and avant-garde cinema with feminist interest and feminist politics. Specifically, Mulvey explained that mainstream or Hollywood films are unable to provide the experience of contradiction, reinforcing anti-realism and, this is where the avant-garde cinema is useful for women and feminism because they share "a common interest in the politics of images and problems of aesthetic language."

Women's involvement in the experimental and avant-garde cinema started in the early twentieth century, although it was limited due to the constraints of the social conventions of this period. It was only after the war when women became actively involved in this cinematic genre. Germaine Dulac was a leading member of the French avant-garde film movement after World War I. There is also the case of Maya Deren's visionary films, which belonged to the classics of experimental cinema and focused on the North-American avant-garde. The contemporaneous trend did not oppose the female filmmakers' entry into avant-garde filmmaking although, in its early years, they did not receive as much critical acclaim as their male counterparts.

Shirley Clarke was a leading figure of the independent American film scene in New York in the fifties. Her work is unusual, insofar as she directed outstanding experimental and feature films as well as documentaries. Joyce Wieland was a Canadian experimental film maker. The National Film Board of Canada allowed many women to produce non-commercial animation films. In Europe women artists like Valie Export were among the first to explore the artistic and political potential of videos. Her art works incited controversy due to sexual and feminist qualities.

Impact on society

Impact of second-wave feminism

In the late sixties, when the second wave of feminism started, the New Left was at its height. Both movements strongly opposed the 'dominant cinema', i.e. Hollywood and male European bourgeois auteur cinema. Hollywood was accused of furthering oppression by disseminating sexist, racist and imperialist stereotypes. Women participated in mixed new collectives like Newsreel, but they also formed their own film groups. Early feminist films often focused on personal experiences.

Second-wave feminism would reveal itself in different forms in films in the latter part of the 20th century such as with the idea of "sisterhoods" in movies (however many of these movies were made by men). Other concepts of second-wave feminism in films involved women's oppression and the difficulty in identifying with the idea of femininity. During this time, feminism in movies would also be represented as a counter-cinema whereby filmmakers would attempt to intentionally deconstruct the model of the classical film. This style of feminist counter-cinema can be seen in the works of artists such as Sally Potter's ''Thriller'' in 1979.

Representing sexuality

Resisting the oppression of female sexuality was one of the core goals of second-wave feminism. Abortion was still very controversial in many western societies and feminists opposed the control of the state and the church. Exploring female sexuality took many forms: focusing on long-time censured forms of sexuality (lesbianism, sado-masochism) or showing heterosexuality from a woman's point of view.
Liliana Cavani, Birgit Hein, Elfi Mikesch, Nelly Kaplan, Catherine Breillat and Barbara Hammer are some of the directors to be remembered.

A film notable for its empathic portrayal of sex work is Lizzie Borden's '' Working Girls'' (1986). Molly, a white lesbian in a stable mixed-race relationship, is a Yale-educated photographer who has chosen to augment her income through sex work in a low-key urban brothel. We accompany Molly on what turns out to be her last day on the job, understanding her professional interactions with her "johns" through her perspective, a completely original point of view, since, until Borden's film, sex workers had largely been depicted stereotypically. The story's sympathetic, well-rounded character and situation humanizes sex work, and the film itself combats the anti-pornography stance touted by many second-wave feminists, which Borden rejects as repressive.

Typically women are portrayed as dependent on other characters, overemotional, and confined to low status jobs when compared to enterprising and ambitious male characters (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Women in cinema are grossly misrepresented and definitely under represented. The roles that men play are the superhero, the wealthy business man or the all-powerful villain. When it comes to the roles females play they tend to be the housewife, the woman who can't obtain a man, the slut, or the secretary. The true comparison is masculinity versus femininity. The Bechdel test for film is a type of litmus test that examines the representation of women in media. The 3 factors tested are: 1. Are there at least 2 women in the film who have names? 2. Do those women talk to each other? 3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man? (Sharma & Sender, 2014). Many roles that are given to women make them either dependent on the male counterpart or limits their role. Another characteristic of their role placement is that women are twice as likely to have a life-related role rather than a work-related role. Hollywood rarely chooses to have women be the all-powerful boss or to even have a successful career. There have been some examples that break this norm, such as '' The Proposal'' by Anne Fletcher. Even in these two films, the male counterpart is a strong role and in both the female lead is reliant on both actors for the storyline. Women do not stand on their own in movies and rarely are the center of attention without a male being there to steal the limelight. Some roles that have been portrayed in recent films have worked against this norm, such as Katniss in ''Hunger Games'' and Furiosa in '' Mad Max: Fury Road'' (both films are directed by men). These roles break the norm, as women typically are portrayed as dependent on other characters, overemotional, and confined to low-status jobs compared to enterprising and ambitious male characters (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Women in cinema are grossly misrepresented and underrepresented.

Fear of entering cinematography

Many women fear(ed) even entering the film industry, let alone produce multiple pieces of work in the industry. It is said that both male and female workers believe hiring women into the industry is taking a big chance, or being risky. There are many discriminatory acts toward women during the hiring process into the industry such as age discrimination and providing them with lower pay rates. Most women workers in the film industry only become freelancers, which in most cases prevents them from creating careers and making a living out of their film/cinematography passion. These are the fear tactics in place, whether purposely or not, to prevent women from thriving in the film industry.

However, there is much more gendered discrimination towards women after they receive the job and actually begin to help and/or produce work. Statistics show that there are not many women in senior positions in the industry. Compared to the number of women hired, it is clearly shown that women are not given the chance to keep their jobs for long periods of time. "However, it is notable that women lost their jobs at a rate that was six times that of men, indicating the particular and heightened vulnerability of women in the industry." Women are not being promoted into higher positions as often as their male counterparts and are not even given the chance to stay long enough to get promoted. These are multiple issues happening during the hiring process and even the post-hire experiences of women which may make other women fear entering the industry in the first place.

The way women are treated in the workplace are also evidence of the inequalities against them in the film industry. Women's pay rates and expectations in their background/experience in cinematography is much different than male workers. There are many scenarios in the industry that displays the woman with more qualifications for the job than the man, yet earns less money for the same job than the man. "It is worth noting that women in this field are significantly better qualified than their male counterparts, with a greater proportion being graduates and an even more significant difference in the numbers of women, compared to men, with higher degrees (Skillset, 2010a: 6)." Even the women who are overqualified are treated as if they are not, resulting in them working extra hard to become better and be rewarded as their male counterparts. All of these inequalities and discrimination toward women in the film industry creates a fear for women to even want to enter the industry.

Statistics

A study done by USC Annenberg researched what it meant to be a female in the film industry, no matter if they were working behind the scenes or were fictional characters. USC Annenberg looked at two test groups for films, the top 100 films every year from 2007 to 2015 and the top 100 films in 2015.

For the top 100 films in 2015, women were leads and co-leads in 32 of them, while of the 32 films, only 3 of them included a race other than Caucasian. Out of the thousands of speaking roles, only 32 characters were LGBT and of those characters, 40% of them were racially diverse. Female characters were also three times more likely to be seen in a sexual context.

Behind the scenes had similar statistics to the female fictional characters. Female directors, writers, and producers made up 19% of the 1,365 people that it took to create the top 100 films in 2015. The percentage of female writers (11.8%) and producers (22%) can be seen as high compared to female directors (7.5%). Of the 7.5% of female directors, three of them were African American and one was Asian.

For the top 100 films every year from 2007 until 2015, of the 800 films, 4.1% were directed by females.

Documentaries

While there is still a gap between the percent of female and male filmmakers, women tend to be more involved in documentary films. There is a higher percentage of women directing documentaries than women directing narrative films. There came a point where female directors were barely noticed or not recognized at all.

Female filmmakers as feminists

In the film world, many female filmmakers are not given much attention or chances to show what they are capable of. This issue is still being debated on, but several activists aim to change and overcome this type of inequality. These activists aim to raise awareness and produce a social change to what is currently shown in the media. During the 1990s, many films came about presenting female filmmakers from different nationalities and racial groups. For example, one of the films released that year is called ''Sisters in Cinema'' directed by Yvonne Welbon. This documentary was to demonstrate how African American female directors inspect their present spot in the business. By giving these female film directors the opportunity to showcase their work and demonstrate their actions then feminist documentaries will be as equally important to any other documentary. Not only this, but many documentaries tend to showcase different social activists who aim for a social change by raising awareness and reinforcing female film directors.

Celluloid ceiling

The Center of the Study of Women in Television and Film has dedicated 18 years to the study of women in the film industry. An annual report is created, discussing how women have contributed to as filmmakers. Most of the findings from the research shows that, statistically, it says the same from year to year. The highest earning movies of the past 20 years, with the exception of foreign films and reissues, have been monitored and studied by the Celluloid Ceiling to provide information on the contributions and employment of women on these films. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, as of 2017, “women comprised 18% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films." The same study concluded that in 2017, 10 or more women were given one of these positions in 1% of films, compared to 10 or more men being hired for these jobs in 70% of films. Information from the Celluloid Ceiling shows that more women tend to be employed on film projects directed by women. According to the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, "in films with at least one female director, women comprised 53% of writers. Conversely, in films with male directors, women comprised just 10% of writers." Statistically, female directors generally create films about and for women, and hire women to assume the roles of main characters or protagonists. The Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy additionally found that "in 2015, women comprised only 22% of protagonists and 18% of antagonists. Just 34% of major characters and 33% of all speaking characters in the top 100 domestic grossing films were women."

The group also contributes their time to creating articles discussing how women are viewed in film, not only as filmmakers but as fictional characters as well.

United States

Hollywood

Silent era

In the silent film era American women were heavily involved in cinema in all occupations.

Helen Gardner was the first film actor, male or female, to form her own production company, "The Helen Gardner Picture Players". The first feature film by the company was the 1912 film ''Cleopatra'', which she produced and starred in.

American director, Lois Weber is one of the most prolific film directors and producers of the silent era. Weber is well known for her films ''Hypocrites'' (1915), ''The Blot'' (1921), and ''Suspense'' (1913).

Mabel Normand was another notable early female filmmaker. She started as an actress and became a producer and director in the 1910s. During the late 1910s and early 1920s, she had her own movie studio and production company. Other notable actresses who became directors include Grace Cunard and Nell Shipman.

1940s-1950s

Dorothy Arzner was the one of the very few women in executive positions to be successful from 1920s until 1940s Hollywood. From 1927 until 1943, Arzner was the only woman director working in Hollywood.

First woman to direct a film noir, Ida Lupino, is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. Besides directing, she was also an actress.

Ukrainian born American filmmaker Maya Deren directed groundbreaking avant-garde and experimental films in the 1940s including ''Meshes of the Afternoon'' (1943).

1960s-1970s

Shirley Clarke was an important and innovative independent filmmaker who shot three feature films in the 1960s — '' The Connection'' (1961), '' The Cool World'' (1964) and ''Portrait of Jason'' (1967).

The 1970 film ''Wanda'' by Barbara Loden is one of the most poignant portraits of alienation in cinema.

Joyce Chopra achieved success as a documentary and feature film director in the 1970s and 1980s. Her film ''Smooth Talk'' won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at the 1986 Sundance Festival. She also collaborated with director Claudia Weill on her documentary film ''Joyce at 34'' which documented her giving birth.

Critically acclaimed 1978 film '' Girlfriends'' by Claudia Weill is a highlight of 1970s women's cinema. In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Due to workplace sexual harassment from producer Ray Stark on the set of her follow-up film '' It's My Turn'' (1980), Weill stopped making feature films.

Elaine May, Joan Darling, Joan Tewkesbury, Joan Micklin Silver, Karen Arthur and Martha Coolidge are some other notable 1970s film directors.

1980s-2000s

Barbra Streisand, best known as an actress and singer, directed the film '' Yentl'' in 1983, thus becoming the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film. She was the first woman to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Director in 1983.

Film director Julie Dash achieved great commercial and critical success with her 1991 hit film ''Daughters of the Dust'' which was an award winner at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2004, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Kathryn Bigelow works in traditionally male-dominated genres like science fiction, action and horror. Her directorial debut was the 1981 biker drama ''The Loveless''. She became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director and the Directors Guild of America Award in 2010 for ''The Hurt Locker''. In 2013, her film ''Zero Dark Thirty'' was met with universal acclaim and grossed $95 million in the United States box office. Bigelow went on to be nominated for Best Director at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards and Directors Guild of America Award among others. However, she failed to be shortlisted for the category at the 85th Academy Awards in what was widely seen as a snub.

Lizzie Borden is a notable 1980s feminist filmmaker who made films on controversial topics, including sex-work. Some of her notable films include ''Born in Flames'' (1983) and '' Working Girls'' (1986).

2000s-present

In the 2000s women directed films made in Hollywood have started making more money than ever, with highest grossing films getting 100 million or even up to billion dollar grosses.

Anne Fletcher has directed seven studio-financed films: '' Step Up'' (2006), ''27 Dresses'' (2008), '' The Proposal'' (2009) ''The Guilt Trip'' (2012), ''Hot Pursuit'' (2015), '' Dumplin''' (2018), and upcoming ''Hocus Pocus 2'' (2022) which have gone on to gross over $343 million at the US box office and $632 million worldwide.

Catherine Hardwicke's films have grossed a cumulative total of $551.8 million. Her most successful films are ''Twilight'' (2008) and ''Red Riding Hood'' (2011).

Nancy Meyers has enjoyed success with her five features: '' The Parent Trap'' (1998), ''What Women Want'' (2000), '' Something's Gotta Give'' (2003), ''The Holiday'' (2006) and '' It's Complicated'' (2009) which have amassed $1,157 million worldwide. Before she started her directorial career she wrote some other successful films like '' Private Benjamin'' (1980) for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, ''Baby Boom'' (1987) or ''Father of the Bride'' (1991).

Sofia Coppola is a critically acclaimed director who has also had financial success. Her award-winning directorial debut film '' Lost in Translation'' (2003) grossed over $119 million. ''The Virgin Suicides'' (1999), ''Marie Antoinette'' (2006) and ''The Bling Ring'' (2013) were also successful. At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Sophia Coppola won the Best Director award for her work on the drama film '' The Beguiled'', becoming the second woman in the festival's history to win the award. Her niece Gia Coppola is also a notable woman filmmaker.

Ava DuVernay is the director of the critically acclaimed ''Selma'' (2014) as well as the first African American woman to direct a triple-digit-budgeted film, ''A Wrinkle in Time'' (2018).

Another notable modern director Greta Gerwig, has directed two films, '' Lady Bird'' (2017) and ''Little Women'' (2019), both of which earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Jennifer Lee, director of smash hits '' Frozen'' and ''Frozen II'', is the first female director of a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film and the first female director of a feature film that earned more than $1 billion in gross box office revenue.

Chloe Zhao is a Chinese born film director who is best known for her work in Hollywood. Zhao became the first Asian woman, the first woman of color and the second woman ever to win Best Director for her 2020 film ''Nomadland''. In 2021 she directed the ensemble cast superhero film '' Eternals''. She moved to Los Angeles from Beijing as a teenager. Her work is heavily censored in China.

Highest grossing women film directors whose films have earned more than 180 million dollars include Nancy Meyers, Elizabeth Banks, Catherine Hardwicke, Betty Thomas, Brenda Chapman, Vicky Jenson, Jennifer Lee, Patty Jenkins, Anna Boden — all of them are US Hollywood filmmakers.

African American women's cinema

Julie Dash's ''Daughters of the Dust'' (1991) was the first full-length film with general theatrical release written and directed by an African American woman. Since then there have been several African or African-American women who have written, produced or directed films with national release. Neema Barnette (''Civil Brand''), Maya Angelou (''Down in the Delta''), Kasi Lemmons (''Eve's Bayou''), Cheryl Dunye (''My Baby's Daddy''), Stephanie Allain (''Biker Boyz''), Tracey Edmonds (''Soul Food''), Frances-Anne Solomon (''A Winter Tale'') and Dianne Houston ('' City of Angels''), Leslie Harris ('' Just Another Girl on the IRT'') are among these filmmakers. In 1994 Darnell Martin became the first African American woman to write and direct a film produced by a major studio when Columbia Pictures backed '' I Like It Like That''.

To date, Nnegest Likké is the first African American woman to write, direct and act in a full-length movie released by a major studio, ''Phat Girlz'' (2006) starring Jimmy Jean-Louis and Mo'Nique.

For a much fuller accounting of the larger history of black women filmmakers, see Yvonne Welbon's 62-minute documentary ''Sisters in Cinema'' (2003).

Furthermore, since the revolutionary start of filmmaking, black women filmmakers have continuously struggled and are still struggling to showcase their work on feature films in Hollywood. However, that does not exclude the fact that there were various black women filmmakers who sparked during their time and age because of their phenomenal work behind the scenes. Jessie Maple is considered to be one of the most recognized figure for the civil rights of the African American community and women of color within the film industry. Her film career took off when she first worked as a film editor for the crime drama film '' Shaft’s Big Score'' (1972) and ''The Super Cops'' (1974) which was based on a book. She continued to work as a film editor for several years but eventually became the only black union cameraperson in her time in New York. With her devoted passion for film and activism growing by the day, Maple and her husband, Leroy Patton, created LJ Film productions, Inc. and when on about to produce several short documentaries within the border and context of black representation, such as ''Black Economic Power: Reality or Fantasy?'' (1977). Her two major works, ''Will'' (1988) and '' Twice as Nice'' (1988), were the first ever independent feature films to be solely created and directed by an African American woman.

Alile Sharon Larkin is known as a film director, producer, and writer. She began her film career while earning her master's degree in UCLA in film and television production. One of her first films called ''Your Children Come Back to You'' (1979) depicts the ongoing dilemma that a young African American girl faces while choosing between her aunt's desire to take in a European lifestyle while her mother is strictly intact with her African roots and culture. Larkin's second film feature ''A Different Image'' (1982) gained her popular recognition and praise, and eventually won a first-place prize from the Black American Cinema Society. Her ongoing success in the film industry gave her the potential and opportunity to form her own production studio in order to create and enhance educational videos and television for young children.''Dreadlocks and the Three Bears'' (1992) and ''Mz Medusa'' (1998) are some of the productions produced in her studio during the 1990s.

Africa

The Cameroonian journalist Thérèse Sita-Bella directed a 1963 documentary, '' Tam-Tam à Paris'', and Sarah Maldoror, a French filmmaker of Guadeloupean descent, shot the feature-film ''Sambizanga'' in Angola in 1972. But the first African woman film director to gain international recognition was the Senegalese ethnologist Safi Faye with a film about the village in which she was born ('' Letter from the Village'', 1975). The 1989 Créteil International Women's Film Festival included short films by Leonie Yangba Zowe of the Central African Republic (''Yangba-Bola'' and ''Lengue'', 1985) and Flora M'mbugu-Schelling of Tanzania. Other African women filmmakers include Anne Mungai, Fanta Régina Nacro (''The Night of Truth'', 2004), Tsitsi Dangarembga (''Mother's Day'', 2004) and Marguerite Abouet

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