Against the Grain: Women Film Practitioners and Theorists Talk Creative Practice and Theory

This round-table project provides a focused, yet provocative and disruptive opportunity for three noted independent British women film practitioners and theorists to debate the contrast and overlap in their approaches produced from within the Academy. Atakav, a theorist, turned to practice for her project on child brides, ‘Growing up Married’; Daniels, takes a first-person approach in the production of essay films in order to comment on the social world; Velody produces ‘theory-as practice’. Her recent presentation concerned Channel 4 News’ use of split-screen to critique the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem i.e. footage there mixed with images of Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza and the West Bank. The approach is inspired by Batty, Berkeley & Glisovic’s round table conversation: ‘A Morning Coffee in Melbourne: Discussing the Contentious Spaces of Media Practice Research’ (2018). We debate how the context of transnational moving-image production and distribution industries, areas that are seemingly tainted with neo-liberal address, restrictive diversity, and isolationist discourse may be challenged. We will ask whether our own disparate creative practice and theory produced from within the Academy enables us to challenge these dominant forms of film address and whether, and in what ways, these may effect change. We do not aim for a singular binary resolution but to explore our practice as exemplars of responses to issues that are facing us both inside and outside the Academy and to outline the possibilities of a response through our future practice and dialogue with other creative practitioners and theorists.