The innovations and debates in experimental film in the 1970s have had far-reaching and long-lasting influence, with a resurgence of interest in the decade revealed by new gallery events, film screenings and social networks that recognise its achievements. Professor Laura Mulvey, and writer/director Sue Clayton, bring together journalists and scholars at the cutting edge of research into 1970s radical cinema for this collection. Chapters are at once historically grounded yet fused with the current analysis of today's generation of cine-philes, to rediscover a unique moment for extraordinary film production. Other Cinemas establishes the factors that helped to shape alternative film: world cinema and internationalism, the politics of cultural policy and arts funding, new accessible technologies, avant-garde theories, and the development of a dynamic and interactive relationship between film and its audiences.Exploring and celebrating the work of The Other Cinema, the London Film-makers' Co-op and other cornerstones of today's film culture, as well as the impact of creatives such as William Raban and Stephen Dwoskin - and Mulvey and Clayton themselves - this important book takes account of a wave of socially-aware film practice. Without this body of work, today's activist, queer, minority and feminist voices in cinema would have struggled to gather such impact.

Includes a timeline of significant events about 1970s cinema, which have taken place in the 21st century

List of IllustrationsIntroduction - Sue Clayton and Laura MulveyPART ONE: CRITICAL CONTEXTS FOR 1970s EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING1. Semiotics and 1970s British Film Culture, Nicolas Helm-Grovas (King's College London, UK)2. Listening to Women, Sophie Mayer (Independent scholar, UK)3. Political Contexts of 1970s Independent Filmmaking, Steve Sprung (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) & Anthony Davies (University of the Arts London, UK)4. Platforms of History: Brecht and the Public Uses of Radical History in 1970s Independent Cinema, Colin Perry (University of Westminster, UK)PART TWO: INFRASTRUCTURES, TECHNOLOGIES AND 1970s EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING5. Audiences: Not an Optional Extra: Artists' Distribution Practices from the London Film-Makers' Co-op to Lux, Julia Knight (University of Sunderland, UK)6. Engaging Material Specificities: Aesthetics and Politics in the 1970s, Kim Knowles (University of Aberystwyth, UK)7. The Technologies and Practices of 1970s Community Video in the UK, Ed Webb-Ingall (Independent scholar, UK)8. 'Whose History?' Feminist Advocacy and Experimental Film and Video, Lucy Reynolds (University of Westminster, UK)PART THREE: PRACTICES, AESTHETICS AND 1970s EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING (THE 200 AVANT-GARDES)9. A Whole New Attitude: The London Film Makers' Co-op in the Decade of Structural/Materialism, Steven McIntyre (University of Melbourne, UK)10. The 'Salvage' of Working-Class History and Experience: Reconsidering the Amber Collective's 1970s Tyneside Documentaries, Jamie Chambers (Transgressive North, UK)11. Television Interventions: Experiments in Broadcasting by Artists in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, Catherine Elwes (University of the Arts London, UK)12. Britain's Black Filmmaking Workshops and Collective Practice, Daniella Rose King (Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, USA)PART FOUR: CASE STUDIES13. Views of River Yar : Reconsidering Raban and Welsby's Landmark Landscape Film, Federico Windhausen (Independent scholar, Argentina)14. Between Seeing and Knowing: Stephen Dwoskin's Behindert and the Camera's Caress, Rachel Garfield (University of Reading, UK)15. Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair, Amy Tobin (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)16. 'On Her Devolves the Labour': The Cinematic Time Travel of The Song of the Shirt, Kodwo Eshun (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)PART FIVE: SNAPSHOTS FROM THE 1970s17.Memories of The Other Cinema, Nick Hart-Williams (Transition Totnes Film Festival, UK)18. Organising for Innovation in Film and Television: The Independent Film-Makers' Association in the Long 1970s, Simon Blanchard (Leeds Beckett University, UK) & Claire M. Holdsworth (Kingston University London, UK)19. The International Forum on Avant-Garde Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, 1976: Interview with Lynda Myles, Kim Knowles (University of Aberystwyth, UK)20. The Workshop Declaration: Independents and Organised Labour, Claire M. Holdsworth (Kingston University London, UK)21. Campaigning for Innovation and Experiment on Channel 4, Claire M. Holdsworth (Kingston University London, UK) & Rod Stoneman (National University of Ireland, Ireland)Notes on ContributorsChronological List of Recent EventsSelect BibliographyIndex