Japanese Women Directors Project
Project Lead
The forthcoming Japanese Women Directors Project is an open-access initiative dedicated to expanding public knowledge and scholarly engagement with the work of women filmmakers in Japan. Through a series of freely available educational videos and a dedicated website, the project connects groundbreaking research on Japanese women directors to students, educators, film enthusiasts, and scholars worldwide.
The project includes the development of: Digital Dialogues , Director profiles, video essays, and classroom materials. All materials will be openly accessible under a Creative Commons license, making them a valuable resource for educators, researchers, and the public. By fostering global dialogue and collaboration, the Japanese Women Directors Project aims to amplify the voices of women filmmakers in Japan and inspire new research and engagement with their work.
Ways of Doing
Co-Founder
Ways of Doing is an international initiative developed by videographic scholar-makers Lucy Fife Donaldson, Colleen Laird, Dayna McLeod, and Alison Peirse. Dedicated to exploring creative, critical, and practice-based approaches to film and media studies, the collective is invested in dialogue on how we do film scholarship—whether through videographic criticism, experimental methodologies, or interdisciplinary collaborations.
Through the creation of open-access videographic exercises and other online resources, Ways of Doing creates a space for sharing innovative research, teaching practices, and artistic interventions. The initiative is committed to expanding the possibilities of media scholarship by fostering an ethical praxis of audiovisual research, including the modeling of feminist citational practices, collective care, and the creation of an inclusive, videographic community of practitioners.
Reframing the Argument
Co-Organizer, Grant PI
Co-organized by Ariel Avissar, Colleen Laird, Matthew Thomas Payne, and Barbara Zecchi, "Reframing the Argument" is a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame, Tel Aviv University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It is designed to establish and explore videographic practices for graduate students in support of building a globally and linguistically-diverse community of scholarly practice.
As a mentorship experience, the project advances scholarly and pedagogical practice by connecting established videographic scholars with graduate students. With a focus on videographic criticism as a methodology of scholarly research and knowledge production, "Reframing the Argument" offers training in advanced audiovisual rhetoric, video-editing skills, developing a scholarly argument, and using videographic methods to enhance and inform graduate-student theses and dissertations.
Hatsusugata / 初姿
Script Translation
Project Lead
As part of the Japanese Women Directors Project, we are undertaking a collaborative translation and transcription of the script for Hatsusugata (1936), the first known directorial work by Sakane Tazuko—Japan’s first female film director. In partnership with Yuewei Wang, a PhD student in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, this project will produce the first full English translation alongside a complete Japanese transcription of the original handwritten screenplay. The script is housed in the archival collection of the Museum of Kyoto (京都文化博物館), and this work marks a significant step toward making Sakane’s pioneering contributions accessible to a global audience. Both the English and Japanese versions will be published under a Creative Commons license on the Japanese Women Directors Project website, supporting our broader goal of expanding access to and engagement with the histories of women filmmakers in Japan.
Shifting the Lens: Japanese Women Filmmakers in Focus
Co-Organizer and Co-Editor
In partnership with Lindsay Nelson (Meiji University) "Shifting the Lens: Japanese Women Filmmakers in Focus" is a co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema (forthcoming). Bringing together new scholarship from leading voices in the field, the issue includes essays on the collaborative networks of postwar women filmmakers (Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández), the documentary innovations of Haneda Sumiko (Irene González-López), the feminist authorship of pioneering actress-directors (Ayako Saito), the reinvention of gender tropes in horror by Asato Mari (Nelson), and the comedic formalism of contemporary director Ōku Akiko (Laird).
The special issue aims to advance both scholarly and public engagement with the work of Japanese women filmmakers and supports the broader mission of the Japanese Women Directors Project to amplify marginalized voices and foster inclusive film historiography.
Videographic Venice
Media, Spaces, and Ecologies
Co-Organizer
This three-year program, co-organized by Dr. Barbara Zecchi (PhD) and affiliated with the Venice International University Summer Institute, explores the video essay as a powerful interdisciplinary method of research, expression, and pedagogy. Bridging critical theory and creative practice, the program invites participants from a wide range of fields—including film and media studies, gender studies, art, political science, and cultural studies—to engage with videographic criticism as a dynamic mode of producing and disseminating knowledge.
Situated in the unique urban and cultural landscape of Venice, the workshop uses the city itself as both subject and medium, inviting participants to explore spatial thinking, historical layering, and audiovisual experimentation. Building on the momentum of prior international initiatives in videographic research, this program positions Venice as a site of intellectual exchange and creative exploration, advancing the role of the video essay as a central format in 21st-century scholarship.
Graduate Certificate in Videographic Criticism @ UMASS Amherst
Affiliated Faculty and Course Instructor
The Graduate Certificate in Videographic Criticism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the first program of its kind in the United States—and indeed, in the world—dedicated to the theory and practice of videographic criticism. Directed by Professor Barbara Zecchi, this interdisciplinary certificate offers graduate students and professionals in film, media, and related fields the opportunity to explore a rapidly growing area of scholarship that transforms critical thinking into short, shareable audiovisual works. Students will develop both theoretical and practical expertise in the video essay form, with training from internationally recognized practitioners and scholars.
The Collaborative Digital Heritage Studio (CoDHerS)
Co-Lead
Lead by Dr. Aynur Kadir (PhD), the Collaborative Digital Heritage Studio (CoDHerS) housed at the University of British Columbia builds on the momentum of international initiatives that center community-driven research and creative expression as vital forms of cultural preservation. Drawing from interdisciplinary expertise in audiovisual production, digital archiving, and immersive storytelling, CoDHerS serves as both a platform and a process—where communities and scholars co-create dynamic representations of heritage that are locally grounded and globally resonant. CoDHerS embraces digital media as a means to visualize, honor, and sustain endangered forms of knowledge. Through its international collaborations, CoDHerS exemplifies how multimedia scholarship can become a living archive—one that not only safeguards cultural memory, but also revitalizes it through reciprocal and ongoing relationships with the communities it serves.
Embodying the Video Essay
Co-Organizer, Grant PI
Embodying the Video Essay was a collaborative initiative that brought together audiovisual essayists for an intensive, week-long workshop at Bowdoin College (July 8–15, 2023) to explore embodied and performance-based approaches to videographic criticism. The initiative fostered a supportive, international community of practitioners invested in developing new methods of audiovisual scholarship. Participants engaged in creative exercises, guest-led discussions, and collaborative critique, all centered around the question of how video essays frame and express positionality, relationality, and intersectionality. The workshop encouraged participants to situate themselves in relation to their subjects, audiences, and the broader structures that shape screen-based knowledge production. Special invited guests of the workshop included Johannes Binotto, Catherine Grant, Kevin B. Lee, and Jason Mittell, whose pioneering work continues to shape the theoretical and practical contours of the field.