Laura Mulvey: Thinking Through Film
Celebrating Laura Mulvey’s impact on film culture, theory and visual language.
‘Laura Mulvey’s influential work both as a filmmaker and an academic, has given many of us the courage to explore our own voices and the confidence to discuss complex issues.’– Joanna HoggIn her essential essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, which marks its 50th anniversary in 2025, Laura Mulvey highlighted classical Hollywood cinema’s propensity to address, embody and shape film spectators as heterosexual and male. She has been a significant, influential and generous presence in international independent film culture. Her inquisitive eye has seen her cast her gaze across classical Hollywood, world cinema, the avant-garde and more. To mark Mulvey receiving her BFI Fellowship, we celebrate her through the collaborative films she made with Peter Wollen – films that employ drama and documentary to think through ideas around psychoanalysis, feminist theory, symbolism, formal experimentation, genre and the legacies of myth. Classics of British independent cinema, her films raise questions about the limits of cinema while continually challenging us to think about the moving image.
