Unknowable Facts and Digital Databases: Reflections on the Women Film Pioneers Project and Women in Film History

Due to the increasing production of digital artifacts, data-driven approaches are gaining more and more importance in the humanities. In order to understand how they affect film and media studies, this article reflects on databases in the context of feminist film historiography. Focusing on the collaborative Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP) (https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/), it considers the methodological matters when presenting and accessing research results online. One of the biggest challenges for film and media historians today is not only to retrieve and preserve historic sources but also to make both historical records and research outcomes accessible, while taking into account the “unknowability” of history. How can we identify and include the many blind spots when trying to reconstruct the past? In this article, it is made the case that due to their openness and variable use, digital databases, such as the Women Film Pioneers Project, seem to be perfectly suited to respond to this challenge.