I am a feminist film researcher and programmer working with the archives of marginalized and feminist film history, located in Brooklyn, NY/Berlin.
In 2022 I co-founded the non-profit feminist elsewheres e.V. in Berlin (www.feminist-elsewheres.de) and enjoy and prioritize working and writing in close collaboration with other thinkers and feminists. As a PhD candidate at the Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies at New York University, my research focuses on collective labor in West German feminist film history between the 1970s and 1990s.
In my dissertation I examine different forms of labor organizing and collective filmmaking practices in the industry and in a variety of activist contexts. For that, I have conducted extensive archival research and oral histories around organizations such as the Association of Female Film Workers (1979-2009), a broad range of films coming out of the women’s shelter movement, as well as the history of queer and underground Lesbian porn from Germany in the 1990s.
My work on feminist film history has been published in English and German, including a conversation with Monica Freeman on her groundbreaking programming work in Black feminist film, the film work of the documentarian Edith Marcello, and the history of the First International Women’s Film Seminar 1973 in Berlin. You can find more information on my writing here.
With feminist elsewheres I have curated international festivals, film series, and short film programs at Arsenal Cinema, Maysles Documentary Center New York and other places. You can find more on my film curation here.
I am always happy to collaborate, share archival resources and knowledge.
You can reach me at: s.holzberger@nyu.edu