Archiving the Past

Archiving the Pastuncoversthe story of women inFrance who, from the 1920s to 1970s, played critical roles in the production of global cinema's history: asarchivistscharged with collecting films and other materials, aswitnessestasked with remembering their own past film careers, and asactivistscommitted to recovering women's contributions to film history. Reflecting on how gender politics informs the production of film history, Aurore Spiersrecasts the film archive as a site of women's agency, modeling strategies for inclusivity, recuperation, and liberation within feminist film historiography.