The impact of documentary filmmaking: Academics as agents of social and political change

In this article, I draw on three documentaries I have made (Growing Up Married [2016], Lifeline [2020], and Left Behind [2023]) on different forms of gendered violence. I use these as examples to discuss ways in which films made within academic contexts can inform and influence policy. While doing so I reflect on how I built a network of policy makers and charities and used film as a potentially useful tool for partnership development. I explore how scholars can consider filmmaking as a form of activism while arguing that strategies developed within the frame of creative practice afford us alternative ways of promoting social, cultural and political change. I examine the relationship between academic research and activism and the specific role that filmmaking can play in enhancing/problematising this relationship, and argue that the cultivation of impact (as activism) goes beyond institutional, and funding imperatives.