Tracing the Archive of Franca Donda and the Venezuelan Film Collectives Cine Urgente/Urgent Cinema and Grupo Feminista Miércoles/Wednesday’s Feminist Group

Abstract

Franca Donda (Italy, 1933-2017) was an activist, filmmaker, and photographer who lived in Caracas for most part of the second half of the twentieth century. During these decades, she made several short films with the Venezuelan collectives Cine Urgente/Urgent Cinema (1968-1973) and Grupo Feminista Miércoles/Wednesday’s Feminist Group (1979-1988). Throughout her life, she also took thousands of photographs of women across Latin America. However, her work has received little scholarly attention, and her archive has not been properly preserved. This article demonstrates the importance of protecting the legacy of Donda, Cine Urgente, and Grupo Feminista Miércoles. To do so, it explores Donda’s multifaceted identity and outlines the production of the two collectives. It maps, locates, and assesses the conditions of some of the materials that could comprise their archive. And it reflects on issues of positionality and briefly describes the transmedia project that is emerging from this research