Małgorzata Radkiewicz

The article points to a feminist approach to the cinema and filmmaking which has been elaborated and evaluated ever since the early 1970s. Its aim is to present a huge variety of theoretical reflections on cinema which give voice to feminist, gender or queer methodology and interpretations. By emphasizing the question of women’s expression cinema, I am trying to show how diverse and differentiated the feminist fi lm theory can be, in terms of its issue, way of argumentation and theoretical contexts.

Queer Cinema: From cross-dressing to transgender films
The article offers a general view on queer in cinema, focusing on 1990s, and the New Queer Cinema, and selected transgender films. It addresses the issue of both gender and sexuality, in terms of queer theory and queer film studies. There is a short introduction to the history of representation of queer identity in cinema, including classical and genre films. Meanwhile it is a kind of popularization of fi lm analysis from the queer perspective, as the
one represented by Alexander Doty.
The next part of the article examine the tradition of recent queer cinema, including The New Queer Cinema and films of individual authors. It is shown that both in terms of its aesthetics and narration, queer cinema tends to re-imagine and re-create ways of representations, against the conventional fixed models of masculine and feminine, dictated by dominant orders and ideology. There are also two separate parts dedicated to the phenomena of
cross-dressing, and to transgender on screen.
Concluding, the article presents different aspects of the issue of queer cinema, exposing some of its common features, such as: an ironic self-awareness associated with post-modern representation; new conceptualization of self as transgender, transsexual, drag; crossings and transgressing of gender and/or sex boundaries, whether temporary or permanent, on the level of representation or anatomically.

The text examines forms of participation of women from Galicia (Kraków and Lwów) in Polish film culture that started to develop dynamically after 1918. There were several different occupations for women who tried to work for the film industry, including being actresses, owners or managers of cinemas but also film critics. Moreover, the early decades of 20th century was the time of emerging of women’s spectatorship, and film popular culture – commercialized and popularized by yellow press and film magazines.

Closer examination of biographies of Zofia Batycka from Lwów and Maria Malicka from Kraków provides documents and visual materials, illustrating development of Polish star system and on the other hand of women’s professional experience. Other interesting sources of information about women and early cinema in Poland are film critics wrote by women who as Stefania Zahorska or Magdalena Samozwaniec were modern, independent women, educated and open-minded. Their memories and essays can be considered both as a documentation of film history but also of women’s history (and women’s spectatorship).
 

Rozważania podjęte przez autorki tekstów zamieszczonych w niniejszym numerze „Przeglądu Kulturoznawczego” dotyczą różnorodnych zagadnień związanych z obecnością kobiet w kulturze wizualnej Galicji – fotograficznej i filmowej – zarówno jako jej kreatorek, jak i odbiorczyń. Wybór obszaru dawnego zaboru austriackiego podyktowany jest chęcią podjęcia lokalnych badań, ograniczonych do historycznego (i mitycznego) terenu o wyrazistej, choć niejednorodnej, tożsamości kulturowej wynikającej z politycznych, ekonomicznych, społecznych, ale i kulturowych uwarunkowań