One of the key things we will be doing is excavating and bringing to the light some fascinating unmade scripts by women screenwriters buried in Burton’s collections." (4/4)

and the challenges and opportunities they face in doing that work.

I’m also in the process of organising a workshop on women’s unmade screen work at Swansea for June 2026 which will be held in the wonderful Taliesin Create on Swansea University’s Singleton Campus. (3/4)

Working with Shelley Cobb, we are slowly building an archive of these interviews which will offer a fascinating snapshot of women’s work in acquiring, curating, preserving and making accessible the material histories of women’s screen work – (2/4)

Lisa Smithstead writes: "My main role on the project is interviewing curators and archivists to find out more about their working methods with women’s screen work collections. (1/4)

The material culture we hold at the museum is a valuable record of women’s work, offering an evidence trail that can map the hidden history of women’s work in cinema." (4/4)

uncovering the many female writers working in Britain in the mid-20th century. I am also working with Katie on planning the project’s exhibition in the museum in the summer of 2027, and with Linda on editing a book on women’s film history in 10 objects. (3/4)

On the Women’s Screenwork project we are using the museum’s collections to create new stories about cinema’s past and women’s contribution to filmmaking. This includes working with Katie and our student volunteers on the Rank Script Collection, (2/4)

Phil Wickham writes: "I am the Curator of The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter. This is the leading museum dedicated to the moving image in the UK and holds over 94,000 items, forming a people’s history of cinema and optical media. (1/4)

Building on the curatorial experience I developed re-centring Play for Today’s female screen workers during my PhD, I aim to exhibit the histories, figures, texts and also absences that the project team are continually discovering. Watch this space!" (8/8)

and University of Exeter International Women’s Day 2026 (Picture 3). (7/8)

I also worked with Helen Hanson to create an interactive timeline of women’s film history, inviting participants to plot some of our archival discoveries on the display. So far, we have taken this to Futures Festival 2025 at the Exeter Phoenix (Picture 2 – Photo Credit: Ben Knight) (6/8)

My role involves taking this research to a range of audiences. This has included developing a mermaid-themed workshop on screen work and Betty Box for 9-12 year-olds with PI Helen Hanson and Curatorial Specialist Phil Wickham as part of @beinghumanfest.bsky.social 2025 (Picture 1).

I will be presenting the initial findings of my case study on Hazel Adair at the Women’s Broadcasting Histories conference at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social in June. (4/8)

I’m working on a series of spreadsheets crunching some of the data this wonderfully haphazard collection throws up while looking in-depth at a number of case studies based around particular scripts. (3/8)

As the Postdoctoral Researcher in Curation, I am developing methods for visualising and framing women’s screen work in ways that do justice to institutional as well as personal histories of loss, instability, and perseverance. (2/8)

Katie Crosson writes: "Based at the University of Exeter in the Curation Strand, I am working on a script collection donated to the @bdcmuseum.bsky.social by Pinewood Studios, analysing screenplays written, conceived and developed by women. (1/8)

From her archive we discussed unmade films that still contribute to her oeuvre and identity as a diasporic Punjabi filmmaker, how to turn Austen into Bollywood, and what it's like to get to dance with her on set!"

Being in conversation with Gurinder is an exhilarating experience, as she has so much to say to us about what it means to be a diasporic filmmaker and what British cinema is and could be. (4/5)

'Beyond the Frame: Women Filmmakers and their Archives'. (3/5)

and how they understand their own work as central to UK film culture.

I am also working with Linda Ruth Williams on interviews with our two main donors - Tina Gharavi and Gurinder Chadha. These photos are from our event with the British Film Institute (2/5)

Shelley Cobb says: "As part of the WSW team, I am working with Lisa Smithstead interviewing archivists and curators about their roles in the film industry and am learning so much about how they are working to prioritise women's visibility in archives (1/5)

Picture 2) Jess and Wendy Russell working with a poster for Bend it Like Beckham at the BFI National Archive, Screencraft collections. (6/6)

Picture 1) Jess presenting on the case studies collections - Tina Gharavi and Gurinder Chadha's archives - which her and Screencraft archivist, Wendy Russell are working on at Doing Women's Film History, 2025. (5/6)

I’m also increasingly fascinated by questions surrounding the archival framing of films Gurinder never got to make but were evidently crucial to the development of her creative – and, I hasten to add, highly political – practice." (4/6)

One of the most exciting aspects of the project for me so far has been beginning to use archival ephemera to map out the extensive network of women, including activists, costume designers and visual artists, who fed into Gurinder’s early productions. (3/6)

as a case study for developing feminist methodologies for cataloguing the archives of leading women filmmakers. This work builds on my PhD research on the role and representation of women in 1980s Channel 4 Workshop Movement as well as the more applied archival side of my practice. (2/6)

Jessica Boyall writes: "I’m a postdoctoral researcher working on the archival strand of the project (see the 'About' section of our website, link in bio). I’m based at the BFI National Archive, Screencraft Collections, where I’m mobilising the Gurinder Chadha collection (1/6)

3) November 2025, Helen and Project Co-Lead Prof Linda Ruth Williams gave an invited talk about the project at the Cambridge Centre for Film and Screen Research, University of Cambridge. (6/6)

2) In January 2025 Woman With a Movie Camera Summit, BFI Southbank London. Helen and Project Co-Lead Wendy Russell collaborated with Prof Melanie Williams @britfilmmelanie.bsky.social on a panel of talks about the work of female Script Supervisors. (5/6)

for their foundational work. (4/6)