Introduction

This volume of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, ‘Screening the Past: Gender Readings in History and Film ’, is a special edition dedicated to the work of a range of scholars who, to varying degrees, all use the medium of film (or the moving image) in their research. The unifying theme for this collection of articles is the representation of gendered identities through film. Most of the films discussed in the volume are also based on historical events; in that sense the majority of authors are concerned with what we might describe as historical dramas. In one paper the author has taken three films on the same theme from different periods – all fictional in their storylines – and situated them in their respective historical context, while another paper, whose argument focuses on a fantasy film, highlights similarities between fictional and historical narrative strategies in the portrayal of gender and war.