From A to Z: A Conversation on Women’s Filmmaking

M edia critic Pat Aufderheide and film distributor Debra Zimmerman have known each other for almost two decades through the world of independent filmmaking. Since 1983, Zimmerman has been executive director of Women Make Movies (WMM), the foremost distributor of women’s films made in the United States and abroad to theaters, television, schools, and community organizations. Aufderheide, a noted critic and scholar, focuses on independent media and media policy. In this conversation, held at the International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November 2002, Zimmerman and Aufderheide talk about the cultural production and circulation of women’s films and the relationships among women’s movements, women’s filmmaking and aesthetics, and viewing publics. Pat Aufderheide (PA): How did you get involved in women’s films? Debra Zimmerman (DZ): Well, I am not sure, but I do remember the day I decided to become involved with Women Make Movies. Alice Fix, my women’s studies professor at the State University College in New Paltz, New York, encouraged me to go to a Women’s Weekend in 1977. Ariel Dougherty, the founder of WMM in 1972, and Carol Clement, an early WMM member, were screening a film called Musereel (1975) in a barn. I remember sitting at the screening, surrounded by women, and thinking that I had never had this experience before—I had never seen my experiences reflected back to me on film. It was so powerful that I stopped then and said, “This is what I want to do. I want to feel this way all the time.” I don’t think that anyone can overestimate how important it is to have that experience. Even now, when I attend screenings of our