Women Behind the Camera Move into Focus

They have filled the screen with scenes filmed in war zones, from helicopters, underwater and on Hollywood sets. In a penetrating documentary produced by Alexis Krasilovsky, the camera swings around and films the filmmakers—all women.

“Women Behind the Camera” presents 50 courageous pioneers who have made film history around the globe in spite of long separations from their children, injuries, discrimination and other hardships.

Krasilovsky, a Cal State Northridge cinema and television arts professor, devoted six years of intense production—and considerable personal sacrifice—to her groundbreaking documentary, the first to examine the lives, work and challenges of great camerawomen such as America’s legendary Brianne Murphy, ASC, and Iran’s Rozette Ghaderi.

The idea for the film took hold during Krasilovsky’s days as an independent filmmaker. “The trauma of sex discrimination and harassment was so discouraging,” she said, “that I needed to make this film as a healing activity, a means of breaking down barriers for women directors of photography.”

Its world premiere is set for August 2007 at the Globians World & Culture Film Festival in Potsdam, Germany, but “Women Behind the Camera” already has won industry respect, with awards from The National Association of Film and Digital Media Artists and others.

“I hope the film and its Web site www.womenbehindthecamera.com will serve as grassroots organizing tools,” said Krasilovsky, “so that camerawomen in any given community can interface with each other from behind the camera as well as in front of it.”