In the Fictional Shadow of Post-Production? The Silenced Creative Community and Gender Hyper(in)visibility Among Film Editors in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

In this essay, I analyse the autobiographies of three female Russian editors in order to explore the issue of editors’ invisibility in the Russian filmmaking community and among average cinemagoers by tracking editors’ own reasoning for this matter. Here, the invisibility is understood as average audiences’ failure to recognise the creative input and agency of film editors, fueled by the lack of attention from festivals and professional film critics. In addition, this essay attempts to assess the relations within the professional community of editors and filmmakers at large by commenting on any potential linkages of the (self) identification of the female gender to the hierarchies within the community. My guiding question is whether there are any similarities or analogies between the hierarchisation processes and practices within the narrow professional community and the hierarchised relations among all the Russian filmmakers or within the today’s Russian gender ecology.