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Shaping Global Culture through Screenwriting is a powerful testament to the undeniable impact of an international collection of female screenwriters. Spanning film, television, virtual reality, games, and digital media, these case studies showcase instances when women filmmakers used screenwriting to challenge injustice and give voice to communities around the world.
Divided into sections that seek to overcome global disparities in wealth and power, the book views screenwriting as activism, shifting attitudes, and altering lived experiences. Whether about gender and race or war and colonization, each chapter exposes the deep connections between storytelling and social change.
More than just a study of the craft, this book is a celebration of the women writers who use their artistic lens to educate and empower others.
Geared toward readers interested in screenwriting, media studies, sociology, women’s studies, and a wide range of humanities subjects, including history and population studies, Shaping Global Culture through Screenwriting brings long-overdue attention to the vital role women take in shaping the global cultural landscape.
Introduction – Rose Ferrell
SECTION ONE: AFRICAN WORLDS
African Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
1. Differently abled and definitely able: Resilience and inspiration in the films and life of Zambia’s Musola Catherine Kaseketi – Elastus Mambwe
2. We aren’t all cis straight white men: Expanding depictions of autism – Karen Jeynes
3. Voicing our opinion: Challenges of female rap artists in north-west Nigeria – Ummi Muhammad Hassan
SECTION TWO: AMERICAN WORLDS
American Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
4. The first female filmmaker in Central America: Patricia Howell, on a life of defending women’s rights and pioneering national cinema in Costa Rica – Aarón Acuña Cordero
5. Marta Rodriguez: Documentary films with social impact – Sara Manuela Duque García
6. Violence and fire in Latin American women’s scripts: Tatiana Huezo (Prayers for the Stolen, 2021, Mexico) and Claudia Huaiquimilla (My Brothers Dream Awake, 2021, Chile) – Juan Carlos Carrillo, Sebastian Gonzalez
7. How nice to see us alive: Memory, trauma and resistance in scripting How Nice to See You Alive (1989, Brazil) – Lara Caravalho
8. The screenwriting process of Anna Muylaert’s film The Second Mother (2015, Brazil) over 20 years: In search of a different ending for the female characters – Patricia Dourado, Mirian Tavares
SECTION THREE: ASIAN WORLDS
Asian Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
9. Afia Nathaniel and Pakistani minor cinema: The Amazon of the screen – Azam Sarwar
10. The ‘invisible’ in The Way We Are (2008, Hong Kong): The scriptwriter, the script, the everyday, and the audience – Ian Fong
11. Young-Ah Yoo’s controversial adaptation of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (2019, South Korea): A response to the South Korean #MeToo movement – Thomas Carter
SECTION FOUR: ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLDS
English-speaking Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
12. 'This is a true story': Women artists and narratives of disability in Ida Lupino’s Never Fear (1950, USA) – Gabrielle Stecher
13. How to perceive Cassie Thornton? The translation of blindness in Perception (2017, USA) – Polly Ellen Goodwin
15. Catherine Hill: Women who write our worlds – shaping global screen culture with Some Happy Day (2021, Australia) – Joanne Tindale
16. Rewriting Australia’s colonial mythologies: Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021, Australia) – Andrew James Couzens
17. Bluey worlds (2018 – 23, Australia) – Andi Spark
18. Miranda July’s Kajillionaire (2020, USA) and queer utopias – Angie Black and Anna Dzenis
19. Young women who write: Little Women (2019) – Armando Fumagalli
20. Pan-Asian storytelling for Aotearoa New Zealand screens – Ghazaleh Gol, Shuchi Kothari
SECTION FIVE: EUROPEAN WORLDS
European Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
21. Exploring war’s trauma through a feminist lens: Resilient women in the films of Jasmila Žbanić – Bruno Lovric and Miriam Hernandez
22. Desire-driven filmmaking: Celine Sciamma and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, France) – Philippa Burne and Angie Black
SECTION SIX: ISLAND WORLDS
Island Worlds: Section introduction – Rose Ferrell
24. Malu tatau: Rite of passage for women’s empowerment – Agapetos Aia-Fa’aleava and Vaoiva Natapu-Ponton
25. Island Time (2022): Cultural revival in the Mariana Islands – Rose Ferrell
26. Island women use screenwriting in music videos to lead the campaign for global-level climate action – Rosanne Welch
Index