New film series links feminist cinema with local archives
Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) will open a monthly film club on 1 October, pairing feminist films with materials drawn from its extensive collections. The programme, called Collections on Camera, will run monthly through February and aims to use film as a prompt to explore, discuss and reinterpret items from the library’s archive, museum and lending library.
The inaugural screening is Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman, a film that explores archival absence and the search for a woman lost to history. The screening will be introduced by Shola von Reinhold, whose novel LOTE similarly considers retrieving a woman from archival traces.
GWL’s production coordinator, Eilidh Alkilade, and archivist Mae Moss described the series as an opportunity to stage conversations about feminist film within a space specifically dedicated to women’s history and culture. The programme has been developed with support from Film Hub Scotland funding and through collaboration across GWL staff and volunteers.
“We were thinking about how much it makes sense to have discussions about feminist films in a uniquely feminist space…”
Curating film and collections together
Organisers emphasise that this is more than a sequence of screenings. They say the project is intended to allow films to act as a lens on the library’s holdings, prompting fresh ways of looking at items held across the archive, museum and library collections. Staff and volunteers were involved in selecting titles and matching them to relevant materials held by GWL.
- Programme start: 1 October
- Frequency: Monthly (October–February)
- First film: The Watermelon Woman, introduced by Shola von Reinhold
Mae Moss, the library’s archivist, said the project felt representative of the organisation’s collaborative approach, noting that museum and archive staff were excited to identify items that would complement each film. The series is being curated internally, rather than simply hosting external proposals, offering GWL a direct role in shaping the programme.
Local cultural impact and wider context
The initiative builds on GWL’s role as a civic resource for Glasgow, where community-led cultural institutions play a central part in sustaining local histories often overlooked by mainstream repositories. By foregrounding feminist perspectives and engaging visitors with archival material, the library seeks to broaden public conversation about women’s cultural heritage in the city.
For audiences, the series offers several potential benefits: opportunities to see and discuss under-represented films, guided encounters with primary-source material, and an environment that explicitly connects cinematic themes to local histories and collections. The first screening’s focus on archival retrieval signals an intent to centre questions of memory, omission and historical recovery throughout the programme.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Series name | Collections on Camera |
| Start date | 1 October |
| Runs | Monthly through February |
| First screening | The Watermelon Woman (introduced by Shola von Reinhold) |
Further details on the remaining films, ticketing and any associated displays from the library’s collections are expected to be published by GWL in advance of each monthly screening. The collaboration with Film Hub Scotland demonstrates continuing investment in local film programming and community-facing cultural work across the city.
For Glaswegians interested in feminist history, film or archival practice, the series promises a context-rich programme rooted in one of the city’s distinctive cultural institutions.
