The Cinema Coven: Witches, Witchcraft and Women’s Filmmaking

Witches and witchcraft are potent metaphors for feminine power, with a history that predates the advent of cinema. The figure of the witch represents a particularly fraught, contested kind of gendered power, and has long inspired filmmakers to explore themes of race, class, trauma, motherhood, grief, and identity.

This book examines the relationship between women, witchcraft, and filmmaking, exploring types of storytelling and the central themes in these movies. Such films span the globe and have starred prominent figures like Madonna, Bette Midler, Bjork, and Nicole Kidman, as well as lesser-known women behind the scenes. Some of these filmmakers have premiered their works at major film festivals, while others have produced content for television and video releases. While notable in their diversity, these movies share one crucial thing: they were all created by women in an industry broadly dominated by men.

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is an award-winning Australian film critic, author and academic who has written eight books on cult, horror and exploitation cinema with an emphasis on gender politics. She is a research fellow at RMIT University and an adjunct professor at Deakin University, both in Melbourne, Australia.