ABSTRACT
In the last twenty to twenty-five years, US independent women’s cinema has developed into a recognizable form. To some extent, this form may be considered a genre, as most films share common traits that transcend authorship. On a broader level, this phenomenon comes out of a convergence between production trends and the rise of new film festivals, film style, and feminism. Contemporary US women’s cinema is thus a ramification of cinematic and social transformations producing a new configuration of the relation between female authorship and the filmic form. More specifically, I would contend that US women’s cinema is driven by the shared project of narrating the formations and the metamorphosis of female subjectivity within the precincts of identity politics. Of course, this is not a conscious choice as was the case of feminist avant-garde cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. But undeniably, women filmmakers are interested in tuning the “rules” of independent cinema to narratives in which differences of gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexual preference, etc. are key elements. Similarly, women are almost absent from other major trends or “sensibilities” in contemporary independent cinema, such as “quirky comedies” and “movies for hipsters.” 1 In the following, I will discuss the historical formation and development of indie women’s cinema by tying the analysis of films and authors to features of the industry as well as to theoretical standpoints in feminist/gender studies.
