To what extent do the productions of independent women filmmakers display characteristics specific to constructions of gender identity, or ones that are better understood in keeping with broader indie traits – or some combination of the two? This rather large question will be initially addressed here through an examination of the textual qualities and production circumstances of The Off Hours (Megan Griffiths, 2011). Each aspect of this film can be interpreted as displaying a sensibility that is, in some respects, distinctly gendered and one that is more broadly characteristic of parts of the indie sector. How, then, should we understand the relationship between these two dimensions, and how might the specifics of gender be understood in such a case without recourse to any reductive forms of essentialism? These questions will further be explored through a comparison between The Off Hours and Griffiths’ subsequent feature, Eden (2012), an example in which issues relating to the gender- and/or indie-specific are further complicated by the presence of aspects of the thriller genre, a format conventionally associated with male and/or more mainstream filmmakers.

At the textual level, The Off Hours employs a low-key realist approach in its slowly-paced tracing of a short period in the lives of several figures revolving around the central focus of an open-all-night diner. This is a style that could be seen as embodying a distinctly female approach, generally and in relation to some reference points from now-classic aspects of feminist film theory, but one that is also more widely familiar in the indie sector. The production of the film involved a strong element of communal focus, including support from other women filmmakers, another dimension that might appear distinctly – but far from exclusively – gendered. Eden combines its more heightened generic elements with some similar qualities and a more overtly gender-focused theme: of sexual slavery and imprisonment, a more extreme variety of the kind of social imprisonment that is implied to some extent by The Off Hours. What exactly we should conclude from these combinations of characteristics forms the core of this chapter, one that will argue that these particular qualities can be associated with gender in some cases but in a manner that is best understood in essentially relative and proximate terms.