Women in Iberian Filmic Culture

Though cinema arrived in Spain and Portugal at the end of the nineteenth century, national and industrial problems as well as the dictatorships of Salazar and Caetano (in Portugal) and Franco (in Spain) meant Iberian cinemas were isolated from European cultural trends. Strict censorship in both countries limited the themes and artistic practices adopted, while a specific cinematographic language, in many cases full of metaphors and symbolism, sought alternatives to the imposed official discourse and preconceived definitions of supposed national identities. By contrast, the arrival of democracy from the 1970s onwards widened not just the panorama of film production and criticism, but also opened the film industry to women's participation in areas historically assigned to men.
Focusing on Portuguese and Spanish cinema, this collection brings together research about women and their status in relation to Iberian filmic culture. The volume contributes to ongoing debates about the position of women in the cinemas of Portugal and Spain from interdisciplinary and feminist perspectives as well as new accounts of film history. It also aims to promote comparisons between Iberian cinemas and visual culture, a topic that is almost unexplored in academia, despite the similar histories of the two countries, particularly throughout the twentieth century.

Elena Cordero-Hoyo is a Ph.D. student carrying out a research on 'Women's Access to Silent Cinema in Spain and Portugal' in the PhD-COMP (University of Lisbon, KU Leuven, University of Bologna), receiving a FCT scholarship (PD/BD/128075/2016). She is part of the research projects 'Iberian and Ibero-American Dialogues' and 'Cinema and the World' at Centro de Estudos Comparatistas (Center for Comparative Studies) from the Falculty of Arts (University of Lisbon , FLUL) and of the research group 'Presence and Representation of Women in Early Cinema' (University of Girona, HAR2015-66262-P). She is also an editor of Secuencias, an online film history journal.
Begoña Soto-Vázquez is professor of media history and cinema theory at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid), where she directed the MA and Ph.D. of Spanish Cinema Studies. She is the Spanish coordinator of the 'Women's Film Pioneer Project'. She was the founder and director of the Film Archive of Andalucia and has collaborated with film restoration projects within the Filmoteca Española and Filmoteca de Catalunya. She is part of the research group 'Presence and Representation of Women in Early Cinema' (University of Girona, HAR2015-66262-P) and a member of the Asociación Española de Historiadores del Cine and Domitor.