3 Days
BRATTLEBORO — 2018 • Julie Sharbutt • 11 min • US • Drama
When three women friends sense danger on a camping trip, they keep each other laughing until a horrible twist makes them feel more alone than ever.
7 Planets
2018 • Milda Baginskaite • 7 min • US • Short
A tale of one girl's dream to escape Planet Earth.
A Great Ride
2018 • Deborah Craig & Veronica Deliz • 28 min • US • Short
A look at older lesbians who live in an LGBTQ-friendly retirement community in Santa Rosa-aging with dynamism and zest for life, determination, and humor.
Ask for Jane
2018 • Rachel Carey • 108 min • US • Drama
BASED ON A TRUE STORY - Chicago, 1969 - A world where abortion is punishable by prison, and getting birth control is nearly impossible. When a pregnant student attempts to take her own life, Rose and Janice find a doctor willing to perform the procedure in secret to save the woman's life. Sparked by this experience, Rose and Janice form the Jane Collective: a secret organization to help other women obtain safe and illegal abortions. Operating like a spy network, complete with blindfolds and code names, the Janes help thousands of women - but they can't hide from the police forever.
Birdie
2018 • Shelly Lauman • 8 min • US • Short Drama
A woman walks alone to the train station. As she descends the stairs to the underground platform she smiles at a young man, he smiles back. With the smallest of gestures, the woman becomes caught in a subtle and sinister game.
Cafe Abundance
2018 • Emily McGregor • 9 min • US • Short Comedy
When Ashley realizes society has been selling her nothing but bullshit her entire life, she completely loses it in the middle of an artisanal restaurant. This story begs the question: does kale quinoa make you feel empowered? NO. OF COURSE, IT DOESN'T.
Counterfeit Kunkoo
2017 • Reema Sengupta • 15 min • India • Short Drama
In a city overflowing with buildings, Smita must find herself a house to rent. She is hard-working, honest and respectful - the ideal tenant - except for one glaring flaw. She is a middle-class Indian woman without a husband. An intimate perspective on the identity of the 'Ideal Indian Female' in urban India of today.
Dykes, Camera, Action
2018 • Caroline Berler • 58 min • US • Doc
Lesbians didn't always get to see themselves on screen. But between Stonewall, the feminist movement, and the experimental cinema of the 1970s, they built visibility, and transformed the social imagination about queerness. Filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Cheryl Dunye, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, film critic B. Ruby Rich, Jenni Olson, and others share moving and often hilarious stories from their lives and discuss how they've expressed queer identity through film.
Freaks of Nurture
2018 • Alexandra Lemay • 6 min • Canada • Short
A stop-motion film about a mother-daughter relationship bursting at the seams with babies, poodles and flying spaghetti.
Girl-Hearted
2017 • Anne Scheschonk • 37 min • Germany • Short Doc
Nori, a 7-year-old child who was assigned a male gender at birth but defines herself as female, and her mother, Josephin reflect on their experiences together and on the ways they've traversed society's expectations of them-and, perhaps more importantly, their own expectations of one another. A film about being a girl.
Girls Section
2018 • Kathryn Everett • 12min • Pakistan • Doc
Life is hard in remote northern Pakistan - especially for women, who face significant cultural, economic, and geographic barriers to opportunity and education. Despite their difficulties, a quiet revolution is growing. For the first time, girls in the region are challenging tradition for their right to go to school.
In Reality
2018 • Ann Lupo • 89 min • US • Comedy
Ann is consumed by the fantasy of finding true love. Just when she thinks she's found it, she is friend-zoned. The disappointment of rejection sends her into an obsessive downward spiral that tests the limits of her sanity and the strength of her closest friendship. In order to reclaim her bearings on reality, she confronts her overgrown fantasies by making a film about the experience. The result is a vulnerable, hilarious, and vibrantly stylized investigation of love.
In the Name of Your Daughter
2018 • Giselle Portenier • 84min • Tanzania • Doc
Heartbreaking and heartwarming, the award-winning In The Name Of Your Daughter tells the story of Tanzanian girls as young as eight who have to make the most difficult choice of their young lives: whether to submit to female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage or risk their lives and run away from home, not knowing if they'll ever see their families again.
Instructions on Parting
2018 • Amy Jenkins • 95 min • US • Doc
Visual artist Amy Jenkins presents a portrait of the cyclical nature of life and death. As she navigates the emotional transition into motherhood, she must also make sense of the untimely passing of several members from her immediate family.
Itsy
2018 • Premila Puri • 12 min • UK • Short
ITSY is a fictional narration of two neighbors and an unsuspecting friend who forges their unique bond.
Lovesick
2018 • Ann S. Kim & Priya Giri Desai • 74 min • India • Doc
In India, where marriage is a must but AIDS carries a stigma, what are HIV-positive people to do? 72-year-old Dr. Suniti Solomon, who discovered India's first case of HIV 25 years ago, has found a way to help HIV positive patients find partners and meet societal expectations by taking on a new role: marriage matchmaker. Like other Indian matchmakers, Dr. Solomon matches by religion, education, and income; but she also matches by white blood cell counts and viral loads. For her, this isn't just about romance - it's a way to stem the spread of HIV and fight stigma.
My Big White Thighs & Me
2017 • Hannah Maia • 25 min • UK • Short Doc
My Big White Thighs & Me encourages us all to turn down the volume on the demands of the world and to celebrate the quiet heroism of a female life and its body. A story about womanhood, miscarriage, healing, loving your own skin & freezing your bum off in cold water.
Netizens
2018 • Cynthia Lowen • 97 min • US • Doc
NETIZENS exposes the proliferation of cyber harassment faced by women, spreading from the web to the most intimate corners of their lives. As the internet becomes the next frontier of civil rights, this feature documentary follows three women who are targets of harassment, along with advocates, legal experts and others, as they confront digital abuse and strive for equality and justice online.
On Her Shoulders
2018 • Alexandria Bombach • 94 min • Italy • Doc
Follows Nobel-Peace prize winner, twenty-three-year-old Nadia Murad's life from giving testimony before the U.N. to visiting refugee camps to soul-bearing media interviews and one-on-one meetings with top government officials. With deep compassion and a formal precision and elegance that matches Nadia's calm and steely demeanor, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach follows this strong-willed young woman, who survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped the hands of ISIS to become a relentless beacon of hope for her people, even when at times she longs to lay aside this monumental burden and simply have an ordinary life.
Over the Limit
2017 • Marta Prus • 74 min • Poland/Germany
Over the Limit shows how the successful Russian system for training athletes transgresses boundaries. Elite rhythmic gymnast Rita Mamun has reached a crucial moment in her career. She's soon to retire, but has one final goal set out for her: winning Olympic gold. A nail-biting behind-the-scenes drama about the intense physical and mental labor put into a sport that thrives on its beautiful aesthetics.What does it mean to live constantly under the pressure of expectations?
Pumpkin Movie
2017 • Sophy Romvari • 10 min • Canada • Short Drama
When two long-time friends call each other over Skype to continue their annual Halloween tradition of carving pumpkins together, they swap stories of negative encounters with men, both first - and secondhand, in this frank window into the pervasive nature of gender inequality.
Queen of Hearts
2018 • Malene Flindt Pedersen • 84min • Denmark • Doc
“Queen of Hearts” revolves around one of the most powerful women in Denmark - Lizette Risgaard - the President of The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, the first woman in charge of the Danish labour movement. Over the last years the Confederation has lost 500.000 members. But with her belief in community, solidarity and her atypical leadership style, Lizette jumps into the fight for decency and justice. In this film we're at the center of political power and decision making, where every member makes up the community and every vote can tip the scale for - or against - solidarity.
Radium Girls
2018 • Lydia Dean Pilcher, Ginny Mohler • 102 min • US • Drama
Set in an era when radium was sold as a cure-all miracle potion, a group of factory workers advocate for safer work conditions after some of their colleagues become ill from radium exposure.
Rafiki
2018 • Wanuri Kahiu • 83 min • Kenya/US • Drama
“Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.
Salam
2018 • Claire Fowler • UK/USA • 14 min • Short Drama
A female Lyft driver has to navigate the night shift in NYC while waiting to hear life or death news from Syria.
Sookee - of Seahorses and Closets
2018 • Kerstin Polte • 34 min • Germany • Short Doc
An intimate portrait of Sookee, a queer-feminist Hip Hop Artist and left-wing activist in Germany, who has been fighting against sexism, homophobia and racism especially in german hip-hop.
Her life and thoughts revolve always around her message: Tolerance and love instead of discrimination and stereotyping . Honesty instead of arrogance. Diversity instead of binary thinking.
The Cleaner
2018 • Demitra Papadinis • 3 min • US • Short Comedy
A woman must face all the challenges and terrors caused by an imminent visit from her mother.
The Great Unknown
2018 • Desiree Matthews • 15 min • US • Short
When a woman experiences a miscarriage, she arrives at her grandmother's (Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis) door seeking a witness to her profound grief. As the two women struggle to find their way through this devastating loss, the ancient power of sisterhood is revealed in the sacred bond they share. Inspired by untold stories often endured alone in silence, 'The Great Unknown' offers a deep questioning of, and eventual surrender to, the vast mysteries of life.
The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution
2018 • Maya Gallus • 75min • Canada • Doc
It takes a brazen personality to excel in the competitive sport of professional cooking. A woman can only ascend the ranks if she can take the heat. Meet seven women chefs at the forefront of a “revolution.”
The Mirnavator
2017 • Sarah Menzies • 11 min • US • Short Doc
Teacher, blogger and mom Mirna Valerio is an endurance runner whose weekends are packed with marathons, 50Ks and other races. But she doesn't fit into the typical mold of ultra-runner; Mirna is black, and she's not stick thin. Which means that along with being a runner, she is a great stereotype exploder. It can be a harsh world of cruel internet trolls and insensitive competitors, but where others might relent, Mirna keeps her head up. She chooses to focus instead on the freedom, joy and feeling of accomplishment. As she puts it, “my body got this.”
The Rest I Make Up
2018 • Michelle Memran • 79 min • US • Doc
Maria Irene Fornes is one of America's greatest playwrights and most influential teachers, but many know her only as the ex-lover of writer and social critic Susan Sontag. The visionary Cuban-American dramatist constructed astonishing worlds onstage, writing over 40 plays and winning nine Obie Awards. When she gradually stops writing due to dementia, an unexpected friendship with filmmaker Michelle Memran reignites her spontaneous creative spirit and triggers a decade-long collaboration that picks up where the pen left off.
The Feeling of Being Watched
2018 • Assia Boundaoui • 84 min • US • Doc
When journalist Assia Boundaoui investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community.
Threads
2017 • Torill Kove • 8 min • Canada • Short animated
In her latest animated short, Academy Award®-winning director Torill Kove explores the beauty and complexity of parental love, the bonds that we form over time, and the ways in which they stretch and shape us.
What Happened to Evie
2018 • Kate Cheeseman • 11 min • Ireland • Short Drama
A schoolgirl's splintered memories of a sexual assault reveal a reality that when revisited from an alternative perspective uncovers a very different truth.
Wild Woman
2018 • Vanessa Sweet • 4 min • US • Short Animated
Wild Woman is an animated poem to mankind which invokes current world issues such as drone-strikes and religious persecution in a plea for empathy. Scenes transform and melt as the animator also explores her personal struggle of becoming a mother and identifying as such in our current social and political climate.
Yellow is Forbidden
2018 • Pietra Brettkelly • 97 min • New Zealand/China • Doc
A modern day Cinderella story where the brave, diminutive and daring heroine's dream doesn't end at the ball - China's Guo Pei is chasing every designer's fantasy - to become part of the exclusive yet savage world of Haute Couture. Set within the new China, YELLOW IS FORBIDDEN is a feature documentary encompassing contemporary global power dynamics and the opposition between art and commerce, looking back at the history of couture all wrapped around the beauty of fashion.