“Women are heroes”
by JR (2010).

Women Are Heroes is a project with many images and little words. JR’s intention is to highlight the dignity of women who occupy crucial roles in societies, and find themselves victims of wartime, street crime, sexual assault, and religious and political extremism. This project takes place in Africa, Brazil, India and Cambodia.

“She’s beautiful when she’s angry”
by Mary Dore (2014)

Resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971.

“The true cost”
by Andrew Morgan (2015)

This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

“The Punk Singer”
by Sini Anderson (2013)

A look at the life of activist, musician, and cultural icon Kathleen Hanna, who formed the punk band Bikini Kill and pioneered the “riot grrrl” movement of the 1990s.

“Girlhood”
by Céline Sciamma (2014)

Fed up with her abusive family situation, lack of school prospects, and the “boys’ law” in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her style, drops out of school and starts stealing to be accepted into the gang. When her home situation becomes unbearable, Marieme seeks solace in an older man who promises her money and protection.

Realising this sort of lifestyle will never result in the freedom and independence she truly desires, she finally decides to take matters into her own hands.

“Oppressed Majority”
by Eleonore Pourriat (2010)

The gender role reversal video purports to target sexism and homophobia. But its essence is class bigotry, racism and misogyny.
Sexism and homophobia in modern culture is like a “black tide”, according to Eléonore Pourriat, the director of the short film Majorité Opprimée. The 10-minute video explores life as it might be for men if gender roles were reversed.

“Persepolis”
by Marjane Satrapi (2008)

French-Iranian animated biographical film based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The title is a reference to the historic city of Persepolis.

“The Land of No Men: Inside Kenya’s Women-Only Village”
by Broadly

Where the foothills of Mount Kenya merge into the desert, the people of Samburu have maintained a strict patriarchy for over 500 years in northern Kenya. That is, until 25 years ago, when Rebecca Lolosoli founded Umoja village as a safe haven for the region’s women. Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili, is quite literally a no man’s land, and the matriarchal refuge is now home to the Samburu women who no longer want to suffer abuses, like genital mutilation and forced marriages, at the hands of men.

Throughout the years, it has also empowered other women in the districts surrounding Samburu to start their own men-excluding villages. Broadly visited Umoja and the villages it inspired to meet with the women who were fed up with living in a violent patriarchy.

“Sophie Scholl: The final days”
by Marc Rothemund

A dramatization of the final days of Sophie Scholl, one of the most famous members of the German World War II anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose.

“Ouvrir La Voix”
by Amandine Gay 

Ouvrir La Voix / Speak up – Make your way is a work centered on the experiences of Black women* that invites viewers to rethink dominant narratives of Black women* and underlying universal narratives. Although the film addresses intersections of discrimination, it also reveals the great diversity within Afro-descendant communities, through the characters’ relationships with creativity, parenthood, depression, sexuality or religion.

“Margarita with a straw”
by Shonali Bose and Niles Maniyar

A young woman cerebral palsy who moves from New Delhi to Greenwich Village for her undergraduate education and comes of age following her complex relationship with a blind girl. It deals with the themes of an inclusive environment, self-acceptance, and human sexuality.

“I am not a witch”
by Rungano Nyoni

‘I am not a witch’ is the first feature length fiction by Zambian-Welsh director and screenwriter Rungano Nyoni, who was inspired by actual stories of witchcraft accusations in Zambia. In her research for the film, she traveled to Ghana and spent time in a real witch camp, observing the daily life and rituals.

Witch camps exist in Ghana, and are settlements where women suspected of being witches can flee for safety, usually in order to avoid being lynched by neighbours.

There are at least six witch camps, housing a total of around 1000 women.

Many women in such camps are widows and it is thought that relatives accused them of witchcraft in order to take control of their husband’s possessions.

“El orden de las cosas/the order of things”
by Alenda Brothers

El Orden De Las Cosas (The Order of Things, in English) starts with a man talking to a woman in a tub. It seems like an innocent conversation, but then a number of odd things crop up. Why is the woman always in water? Why can’t the man find his belt? What do all those marks mean?

This dramatic short film about a woman and her husband’s belt is heart-breaking. The subtle hint of domestic violence rings throughout the film, and the story-telling for it has been done well.

(This is available with and with English subtitles on YouTube).

“Carmen & Lola”
by Arantxa Echevarria

Carmen lives in a gipsy community in the suburbs of Madrid. Like every other woman she has met, she is destined to live a life that is repeated generation after generation: getting married and raising as many children as possible.

But one day she meets Lola, an uncommon gipsy who dreams about going to university, draws bird graffiti, and likes girls. Carmen quickly develops a complicity with Lola and they discover a world that, inevitably, leads them to be rejected by their families.

“The death and life of Marsha P Johnson”
by David France

Who killed Marsha P. Johnson? She was one of the icons of the gay rights movement in the 1960s, the self-described “street queen” of NY’s gay ghetto, and founded the Transvestites Action Revolutionaries with fellow luminary Sylvia Rivera. When Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson River in 1992, police called it a suicide and didn’t investigate.

In David France’s new documentary, trans activist Victoria Cruz seeks to uncover the truth of her death while celebrating her legacy.

“The war against women”
by Hernán Zin 

A documentary examining the global phenomenon of rape as a “weapon of war” in various conflict zones, including Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“City of Joy”
by Madeleine Gavin 

This film follows the first class of students at a remarkable leadership center in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region often referred to as “the worst place in the world to be a woman.” These women have been through unspeakable violence spurred on by a 20 year war driven by colonialism and greed. In the film, they band together with the three founders of this center: Dr. Denis Mukwege (2016 Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize), radical playwright and activist Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) and human rights activist, Christine Schuler-Deschryver, to find a way to create meaning in their lives even when all that was meaningful to them has long been stripped away. In this ultimately uplifting film, we witness the tremendous resilience as these women transform their devastation into powerful forms of leadership for their beloved country.