Film Pioneers? Swedish Women’s Documentaries about the “Third World” in the 1970s and 80s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores an obscure category of documentaries made by Swedish women in the 1970s and 80s, about women’s situation in the so-called “Third World”. The films were supported by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA), through an allocated budget for information aimed at raising the Swedish population’s awareness about and sympathies for the “Third World” and Swedish development assistance. Distributed at a strikingly gender equal rate, SIDA’s film support implied rare opportunities for Swedish women filmmakers in a film industry otherwise heavily marked by inequalities and restrictions. Examining this unique case of women’s film history from the perspectives of feminist and postcolonial film studies, employing archival research, film historical contextualization and critical film analysis, the article seeks to understand the complex interplay between the feminist film movement and Swedish solidarity politics at this time. How did the production context that opened up through the SIDA support overlap with women’s film culture? What kinds of films did the support result in? What kinds of gender and racial politics and national imaginary did they articulate? How can the legacy of these unrecognized but problematic films be approached and included in women’s film history? By unravelling and contextualizing the layered meanings and intricate politics of this small film culture, the aim is to add original insights into the operations of Swedish exceptionalism in women’s cultural production, as well as to address key issues in feminist film historiography. Looking closer at a sample of films, the article critically discusses their mobilization of a colonialist imaginary that evokes Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s (1984) pivotal critique of Western feminist discourse and explores their role in the context of Swedish solidarity politics and constructions of notions of Swedish moral superiority.