Documentary filmmaking as colonialist propaganda and cinefeminist intervention: Mai Zettterling's of Seals and Men (1979)

This essay focuses on UK-based Swedish filmmaker Mai Zetterling's made-for-television documentary Of Seals and Men (1979). Zetterling is known internationally as an art-film auteur, and this examination seeks to broaden her stature in the context of the UK and Europe-based cinefeminsim movements of the 1970s. The authors argue that Of Seals and Men constitutes a significant and overlooked artifact in the history of colonial Greenlandic-Danish relations, as it focuses on the controversy of the Greenlandic seal hunt and was financed as a propaganda vehicle by the Danish government and the Greenland Trade Department. The article draws on extensive archival research and references Zetterling's production notebooks and correspondence as well as official communication by the Royal Greenland Trade Department.