My “Women Behind the Camera: A love-of-vocation film about filmmaking”

At first, I concentrated on Hollywood camerawomen, but then the scope began to broaden. Thanks to a travel grant from California State University, Northridge, where I teach film, I was able to interview Agnès Varda, the acclaimed director who began her career as a photographer, and who had hired some of the first camerawomen in France to shoot some of her most important films. University funding also enabled me to interview camerawomen in Mexico and India. I also recruited two professors whom I had met through the University Film & Video Association: Dr. Harriet Margolis, who interviewed Mairi Gunn in New Zealand, who herself went on to interview Michelle Crenshaw when she came to Hollywood; and Dr. Kiseko Minaguchi, who interviewed Akiko Ashizawa, JSC, in Tokyo, and translated her interview from Japanese into English. Through word-of-mouth, we began to acquire other amazing Unit Directors, such as Jendra Jarnagin, who interviewed several female members of the prestigious ASC (the American Society of Cinematographers) in New York; and Erika Addis, who interviewed Jan Kenny, ACS (the Australian Cinematographers Society) in Australia. One thing that surprised me enormously while making this film was finding camerawomen in France and India - such as Vijayalakshmi, who already has 20 feature films to her credit as Director of Photography - whose film industries have been so much more supportive than Hollywood. It's discouraging that only two percent of the DPs of the 250 top-grossing films in Hollywood today are women; the only way we are going to effect change in Hollywood is to make the comparison to what is going on with the camerawomen in other countries. Fortunately, we've gotten great response from the men who've seen our film, like Thomas McKenney of the International Cinematographers Guild, who calls it "an important film for everyone who collaborates on motion pictures and all who watch them." If the Writers Guild can commission a 50-page report on the status of women, minorities and older writers - which they have done on a regular basis, including recommendations on how to change the often-dismal statistics of these underrepresented groups for the better - then surely the International Cinematographers Guild can follow suit by pro-actively setting timetables for producers, getting them to view the reels of hard-working, talented union camerawomen, and establishing mentorship programs. In the meantime, we've set up a photo gallery of some of the world's most important camerawomen on our website, www.womenbehindthecamera.com/, and are getting new camerawomen to add their photos, links and reels to our second website, www.myspace.com/womenbehindthecamera. We've already heard of two New York camerawomen finding work for each other through this connection. We're hoping that some of the Women in Film and Television chapters can take this ball and run with it, providing Internet forums for connecting camerawomen and producers. My primary focus when I began making Women Behind the Camera was on expanding the numbers of camerawomen working as Directors of Photography in mainstream film industries such as Hollywood, Bollywood and France. However, when I was in India, I also traveled to other parts of the country, which revolutionized my concept for the film. Traveling in Ahmedabad, the home of Gandhi's ashram, I soon found myself introduced to the camerawomen of Video SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association), a group that helped rural Indian villages survive an earthquake that killed 20,000, by picking up cameras and influencing policy makers. That was when I realized that this project was bigger than just me, and that not only was I making a documentary, but I was serving as a facilitator across boundaries for women - and filmmakers - to connect globally. We soon found ourselves with historic footage by China's first camerawoman of Mao's travels throughout China; a camerawoman's footage of the fall of the Soviet Union, whose choice of career is told as a love story; and dozens of other great stories that will inspire and empower a new generation of filmmakers and women. Because of grants from Women in Film and the Fledgling Fund, we were able to complete the project - seven years after starting production with a borrowed mini-DV camera and whatever I could spare out of my teaching salary, or 25 years after first becoming passionate about the idea of getting more women's stories and visions out into the world. Especially because of the digital revolution, anything is possible. Images courtesy of Women Behind the Camera. Top: Michelle Crenshaw, camera operator, International Cinematographers Guild, documentarian and independent camerawoman; Hollywood, 2006. Photo: Mairi Gunn Middle: Agnes Varda, director, interviewed by Alexis Krasilovsky for Women Behind the Camera in Paris, France, 2001. Camera: Alexis Krasilovsky

Alexis Krasilovsky Alexis Krasilovsky is the director/writer/producer of the global feature documentary Women Behind the Camera based on her book of the same title. Film screens closing night at the San Francisco Women's Film Festival, held April 9-13, 2008. Krasilovsky's films (End of the Art World, Exile, Blood and others) have aired on PBS and screened in museums and festivals around the world. She studied film history at Yale University and received her MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts. She is a professor of film and screenwriting at California State University, Northridge, and has her own production company, Rafael Film. MPM also explores the San Francisco Women's Film Festival through an interview with its founder, Scarlett Shepard, in "No Chick Flicks: San Francisco Women's Film Festival."