Documentary filmmaking as colonialist propaganda and feminist intervention: Mai Zetterling's Of Seals and Men (1979)
2015 (English)In: Film History. An International Journal, ISSN 0892-2160, E-ISSN 1553-3905, Vol. 27, no 4, p. 106-129Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This essay focuses on UK-based Swedish filmmaker Mai Zetterling’s made-for-television documentary Of Seals and Men (1979). Zetterling is known internationally as an art film auteur, and this examination seeks to broaden her stature in the context of UK and Europe-based cinefeminsim movements of the 1970s. The authors argue that Of Seals and Men constitutes a significant and overlooked artefact also in the history of colonial Greenlandic-Danish relations, as it focuses on the controversy of the Greenlandic seal hunt, and was financed as a propaganda vehicle by the Danish government and the Greenland Trade Department. The article draws on extensive archival research and references Zetterling’s production notebooks and correspondence, as well as official communication by the Royal Greenland Trade Department.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2015. Vol. 27, no 4, p. 106-129
Keywords [en]
Mai Zetterling, women directors, Greenland, Denmark, Arctic, polar film, Wally Herbert
National Category
Studies on Film
Research subject
Cinema Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-122038DOI: 10.2979/filmhistory.27.4.106ISI: 000372578800004OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-122038DiVA, id: diva2:862305
2015-10-212015-10-212022-02-23Bibliographically approved