Derry Film and Video Workshop

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Derry Film and Video Workshop (DFVW), also known as Derry Film and Video Collective (DVFC), was established in Derry in 1983, incorporated in 1984, and lasted until 1990. Collective members, at different points in time, included Anne Crilly, Margo Harkin, Trisha Ziff, Geraldine McGuiness, Jim Curran, Stephanie English, Tommy Collins, Therese Friel, Brendan McMenamin, and Jamie Dunbar, most of whom had no prior experience of filmmaking. They came together with a sense of urgency to address overlapping political tensions around gender, class, the Irish ‘national question’ and legacies of British imperialism. ¹

The Derry Film and Video Workshop, established in 1984 was a women-led film production company formed under the terms of the 1982 Workshop Declaration, which also gave birth to projects such as the Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa Film and Video Collective. Largely omitted from the histories of these regional/minority/Black-British/diaspora workshops as well as from records of feminist counter-cinema, the DFVW elaborated and explored overlapping political tensions around gender, class, the Irish “national question” and legacies of imperialism. Formed around ideas of radical self-representation and resistance, films produced by the collective offer a nuanced depiction of these complex forces at work in the specific context of Derry. ²