Fifty years ago, Judith Smith, Associate Professor at Fordham GSS, co-produced, co-edited, and filmed The Woman’s Film, the first film ever made by an all-women crew about the women’s liberation movement. And this month, her work is being recognized yet again.
Celebrate International Women’s Day (Mar. 8) by previewing the film and tune in on Mar. 9 at 6:30 p.m. EST to hear Dr. Smith and her co-filmmaker Louise Alaimo speak about the film and its impact. Your RSVP will give you a link to view the film from Mar. 7 evening to Mar. 9, as well as a Zoom link to the talk with the filmmakers and more on Mar. 9 at 6:30 p.m. EST.
Register Now.
From the event’s registration page:
Produced collectively by women, The Woman’s Film documentary is a valuable historical document of the origins of the modern women’s movement in the United States. The film delves into the lives of ordinary women from different races, educational levels and class. Filmed mostly in small consciousness-raising groups, from which the women’s movement grew, the women talk about the daily realities of their lives as wives, home-makers, and workers. They speak, sometimes with hesitancy, often with passion, about the oppression of women as they see it.
THE WOMAN’S FILM was made entirely by women in San Francisco Newsreel. It was a collective effort between the women behind the camera and those in front of it. The script itself was written from preliminary interviews with the women in the film. Their participation, their criticism and approval were sought at various stages of production. The film screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 1971 – and again in 2020!
Newsreel was a radical film collective formed in NYC at the end of 1967, and chapters formed in cities across the United States as well as Mexico City and Japan. New York Newsreel became Third World Newsreel in the early 1970s.
More about Judith and her role at Newsreel:
Judith Smith was 22 when she joined San Francisco Newsreel, and was a member from 1969-1972. Now at 73, 50 years later, she and Louise Alaimo her co-filmmaker, attended the 2020 Berlin Film Festival where The Woman’s Film was honored fifty years later! While her primary profession has been in social work and education (Associate Professor at Fordham Graduate School of Social Service), she continued to make films to illustrate the various projects that she worked on. The films included “Welfare to Work: Through the Eyes of Mothers”, “The Mothers’ Center”, “Becoming a Social Worker” and “Social Systems Theory and Working with Older Adults”. She also edited films on child development with the Margaret S. Mahler Psychiatric Foundation. She is currently finishing a book on mothering in later life, which will be published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.
