A Fragile Existence: Analysing Women's Film and Video Distribution in the UK

Abstract:

Cinenova, the UK's women's film and video distributor, launched in 1991 with the aim of making the transition from grant aid dependency to self-sustainability via earned income to counter the dwindling availability of revenue funding. In contrast to Women Make Movies in the USA, however, Cinenova failed to make this transition. The article examines how a range of factors - especially a lack of commercial viability, the changing market place, the impact of under-resourcing, and the relationship with funders - were responsible for this and in fact rendered the organisation's existence throughout the 1990s a highly fragile one.

Julia Knight
Reader and Lead Researcher on the AHRC funded project 'Databasing Key Documents and Narrative Chronologies of Artists' Film and Video Distributors in the UK', University of Sunderland
julia.knight@sunderland.ac.uk