UCLA Film & Television Archive
The UCLA Film & Television Archive holds over 350,000 motion pictures and 170,000 television programs, spanning the entire course of film and broadcasting history. The collection includes independent and studio-produced shorts and feature films, documentaries, local and network TV programming, commercials, news and public affairs broadcasts, LGBTQIA media, and 27 million feet of newsreels produced between 1919 and 1971. The Archive has preserved important works by women in American film and television, including those by: Maya Angelou, Dorothy Arzner, Jacqueline Babbin, Shirley Clarke, Juleen Compton, Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, Cheryl Dunye, Barbara Loden, Ida Lupino, Frances Marion, Mary Pickford, Kelly Reichardt and Barbara Schultz.
The Archive's catalog of holdings is distinct from that of the Library, and can be accessed via their homepage. Not all of the Archive's holdings are listed in the catalog, so contacting the Archive Research and Study Center directly about holdings and access is recommended.
- UCLA Film & Television Archive Catalog This link opens in a new windowMotion pictures (silent era, classic Hollywood, independent cinema, LGBT collections, documentaries and newsreels, animated cartoons, foreign and contemporary American films), television (American telecasting from 1945 to date), and news and public affairs programs (1950 to date).
- UCLA Film and Television Archive Research & Study CenterIncludes help on using the Archive's catalog and arranging research viewing appointments at Powell Library.
- UCLA Film & Television Archive: Explore CollectionsIncludes help on using the Archive's catalog, as well as profiles of major collections by topic.
- UCLA Film & Television Archive Online CollectionsIncludes KTLA news footage documenting local history, the LGBTQIA series In the Life, selected L.A. Rebellion and UCLA student films, and more.
Selected Streaming Video By and About Women Filmmakers
- Everything is Copy — Nora Ephron: Scripted and Unscripted (2016)
This link opens in a new window
Incorporates footage licensed from the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A documentary look at the life of Academy Award-nominated screenwriter-director Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail). UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. - Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart (dir. Tracy Heather Strain, 2017)
- This link opens in a new window
Incorporates footage licensed from the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A documentary portrait of Lorraine Hansberry, the groundbreaking African American playwright and screenwriter of A Raisin in the Sun. UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. - The Toll of the Sea (1922)Preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Written by prolific silent-era screenwriter Frances Marion and featuring Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Asian American film star.
- The Watermelon Woman (dir. Cheryl Dunye, 1996)
- This link opens in a new window
Preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Considered the first feature-length film directed by a Black lesbian. UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. - YouTube: Archive ConversationsConversations with contemporary film and media makers recorded at Archive events, including: Barbara Hammer, Mary Lambert, Angela Robinson, Penelope Spheeris, Sandi Tan, Joan Tewkesbury and Claudia Weill.
Selected Scholarship Researched at the Archive Research and Study Center
Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781438434056Date: 2011-04-22Ambitious and comprehensive history of the female detective in Hollywood film from 1929 to 2009. In this extensive and authoritative study of over 300 films, Philippa Gates explores the "woman detective" figure from her pre-cinematic origins in nineteenth century detective fiction through her many incarnations throughout the history of Hollywood cinema.
Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother of TV Psychology by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781442268692Date: 2016-09-02In Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother of TV Psychology, Kathleen Collins explores how a clever businesswoman provided a mass-scale service for a never-ending demand: helping viewers understand themselves. Collins explains how Brothers' longevity on television was in large part afforded by her symbiotic relationship with the medium.
Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934 by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780813574837Date: 2016-02-26Laura Horak spent a decade scouring film archives worldwide, looking at American films made between 1908 and 1934, and what she discovered could revolutionize our understanding of gender roles in the early twentieth century. Questioning the assumption that cross-dressing women were automatically viewed as transgressive, she finds that these figures were popularly regarded as wholesome and regularly appeared onscreen in the 1910s, thus lending greater respectability to the fledgling film industry.
Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781477307816Date: 2015-12-15Far from passive victims of coercive seven-year contracts, a number of classic Hollywood's best-known actresses worked on a freelance basis within the restrictive studio system. In leveraging their stardom to play an active role in shaping their careers, female stars including Irene Dunne, Janet Gaynor, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Barbara Stanwyck challenged Hollywood's patriarchal structure.
Like a Natural Woman: Spectacular Female Performance in Classical Hollywood by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780813562650Date: 2014-08-08Bringing a fresh perspective to film history through the lens of performance studies, Kirsten Pullen explores the ways in which actresses, who always appeared to be "playing themselves," responded to the naturalist notion that actors should create authentic characters by drawing from their own lives. At the same time, she examines how Hollywood presented these female stars as sex objects, focusing on their spectacular bodies at the expense of believable characterization or narratives.
Lois Weber in Early Hollywood by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780520284463Date: 2015-05-01Drawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, Shelley Stamp offers the first comprehensive study of Weber's remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood provides compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture.
Never Done: A History of Women's Work in Media Production by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780813574868Date: 2016-10-05Introduces generations of women who worked behind the scenes in the film industry--from the employees' wives who hand-colored the Edison Company's films frame-by-frame, to the female immigrants who toiled in MGM's backrooms to produce beautifully beaded and embroidered costumes. Challenging the dismissive characterization of these women as merely menial workers, media historian Erin Hill shows how their labor was essential to the industry and required considerable technical and interpersonal skills.
- "Searching for Betty Chen: Rediscovering the Asian American Filmmakers of UCLA in the Seventies"
- This link opens in a new window
Luckett, Josslyn. "Searching for Betty Chen: Rediscovering the Asian American Filmmakers of UCLA in the Seventies." Film Quarterly 1 March 2020; 73 (3): 34–40.
This article centers the contributions of the group of Asian American women who trained at UCLA film school during the late 60s and 70s, highlighting in particular the activist work of Betty Chen and Laura Ho.