At most recent count, there are no fewer than forty-five women in Brazil directing or codirecting feature-length fiction or documentary films. In the early 1990s, women filmmakers in Brazil were credited for being at the forefront of the rebirth of filmmaking, or retomada, after the abolition of the state film agency and subsequent standstill of film production. Despite their numbers and success, films by Brazilian women directors are generally absent from discussions of Latin American film and published scholarly works.

Filling this void, Brazilian Women's Filmmaking focuses on women's film production in Brazil from the mid-1970s to the current era. Leslie L. Marsh explains how women's filmmaking contributed to the reformulation of sexual, cultural, and political citizenship during Brazil's fight for the return and expansion of civil rights during the 1970s and 1980s and the recent questioning of the quality of democracy in the 1990s and 2000s. She interprets key films by Ana Carolina and Tizuka Yamasaki, documentaries with social themes, and independent videos supported by archival research and extensive interviews with Brazilian women filmmakers. Despite changes in production contexts, recent Brazilian women's films have furthered feminist debates regarding citizenship while raising concerns about the quality of the emergent democracy. Brazilian Women's Filmmaking offers a unique view of how women's audiovisual production has intersected with the reconfigurations of gender and female sexuality put forth by the women's movements in Brazil and continuing demands for greater social, cultural, and political inclusion.| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Brazilian Women's Filmmaking and the State during the 1970s and 1980s Chapter 2. Contesting the Boundaries of Belonging in the Films of Ana Carolina Teixeira Soares Chapter 3. Rescreening the Past: The Politics of Memory in Brazilian Women's Filmmaking of the 1980s Chapter 4. Widening the Screen: Independent and Alternative Film and Video, 1983 to 1988 Chapter 5. Developments under Democracy: Brazilian Women's Filmmaking in a New Era Conclusion Notes Selected Filmography Bibliography Index | "Extensive original research includes many enlightening oral interviews with filmmakers. Recommended."—Choice

"Marsh fills a gap in our understanding of Brazilian film, women's history and the dictatorship by telling the story of how women carved a place for themselves in the Brazilian film industry over the past forty years, a period of significant political, social and cultural upheaval... It brings a fresh and much needed perspective to the histories of both women and film in Brazil."—Bulletin of Spanish Studies

"The author has clearly laid the groundwork for further research and writing and has made a significant contribution to the study of Brazilian cinema in the United States."—The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History
"The research and the author's political views are thought provoking, making the book an engaging work that any person interested in learning more about Brazil from the 1964 dictatorship to democracy and its consolidation should read. And any teacher interested in Brazilian films under a feminist perspective could use the book in their classes. It is a significant contribution to a field where women's works have largely been neglected. For all these reasons, Leslie L. Marsh's Brazilian Women's Filmmaking: From Dictatorship to Democracy will certainly be very much appreciated for years to come."—Hispania

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Leslie L. Marsh is an assistant...