Woman, Life, Freedom: An Iranian Revolution

On September 16, 2022, in Teheran, the murder by police of the young Mahsa Amini, arrested for "wearing a headscarf contrary to the law", sparked off an unprecedented insurrection. Within hours, a spontaneous movement formed around the rallying cry: "Woman, life, freedom". For the first time, women, joined by men and students, took the initiative and removed their veils, the hated symbol of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian population, from all regions and social categories, rose up in protest. Social networks went wild. The diaspora (between 5–8 million Iranians) took up the cause, and the whole world discovered the scale of this mobilization: could the theocratic regime be overthrown this time?

Le deuxième sexe : Sur les traces de Simone de Beauvoir

Published in 1949, The Second Sex became the bible of global feminism. An essential work that passionately advocates for gender equality, women's independence, and the liberation of morals. Today, how does this seminal work continue to resonate in our contemporary world? Conceived as an initiatory journey to the origins of Simone de Beauvoir's thinking, the film The Second Sex: In the Footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir takes us to the United States, to the places that inspired the philosopher and nourished her theories. An American road trip bringing together the worst and the best, predatory capitalism and mad love. A unique reinterpretation in the company of the great thinkers of our century.

Pussy Riot: Rage Against Putin

Pussy Riot make a comeback after a long absence to stand with Ukraine. Their story and their struggle are told through archival footage and interviews with the group’s members.

Let Me Run

Let Me Run profiles six inspiring women, famous or anonymous, from yesterday or today, athletes or amateurs, who use sport to gain freedom, while tracing more than 150 years of women's struggle for access to sport.

Les Scandaleuses

Béatrice Dalle, Lio, Brigitte Fontaine, Corinne Masiero, Aïssa Maïga, Virginie Despentes, Maria Schneider, Gisèle Halimi, Juliette Gréco, and Adèle Haenel—these women lived on their own terms, defying conventions and embracing lives often deemed "scandalous." Labeled frivolous, hysterical, or simply too free and too loud, they faced criticism yet used controversy as a force for change, challenging norms and advancing women's rights. This documentary retraces seventy years of their bold and unconventional journeys, telling the story of the fearless women who shaped history and fought for a more equal world.

Summer of revolution

What Are You Afraid Of?

A (her)story told through the very people involved in the women’s liberation movement beginning in Japan in the 1970s.

They Fight: Our Breasts, Our Weapons

Born in Ukraine in 2008 in the wake of the "Orange Revolution," the feminist movement Femen fights for democracy, freedom of the press, women's rights, and against corruption, prostitution, sexism, racism, poverty, and religion. The activists quickly caught the attention of the media with their shocking protests. In 2012, at the creation of Femen France, Caroline Fourest followed their actions. They notably affirmed their support for "Marriage for All" by protesting on November 18, 2012, during the demonstration organized by the Civitas Institute against the bill, provoking sharp clashes.

Bangla Surf Girls

Three working-class teenage girls in a port city in Bangladesh escape daily hardships and stifling family lives by riding waves on their surfboards and grabbing hold of the fleeting and thrilling sense of freedom that brings.

Girls' War

As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.

Donna: Women in Revolt

The story of those Italian women who, for eighty years, have fought against power in all its forms.

The Song of Haenyeo

Burn, Baby, Burn! - Wie Aerobic die Welt zum Schwitzen brachte

The saga of fitness, which exploded in the 1980s and contributed, in its own way, to liberating women's bodies.

Over the Kitchen Table

After years of being silenced through violent opposition, Norma Burton, one of the key founders of the first women’s shelter in Tulsa, OK, tells an untold story of the battered women's movement. In the late 1970s and early 1980’s LGBTQ, BIPOC, and formerly abused women across the US gathered in secret to create a grassroots movement that became today's National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, despite persecution and death threats. Norma recounts to her daughter, director Nisha Burton, how she and her collaborators alerted the police of rising cases of domestic violence and ultimately decided to take matters into their own hands by conducting support gatherings in their homes around the kitchen table. These meetings led to the founding of the first battered women’s shelter in Tulsa, OK in 1975. The years that followed were filled with harassment and verbal and physical attacks on Norma and fellow organizers, but today these courageous advocates continue to support the movement.

Return

A young woman was buried alive with the intention of killing, but she survived by chance. hears the cries of her little girl and fights to stay alive for her daughter. But this incident will enlighten a new worldview for her.

Smile

If you don’t laugh, you’re dead

Dead the Long Night

Composed of archive images narrated by the writer, anthropologist and linguist Mouloud Mammeri, the film offers a reflection on the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggle movements of the 1970s around the world.

Mélancolie ouvrière

Long live the strike! Lucie Baud, one of the pioneers of the women's movement, went with creativity, fighting spirit and the power of singing against the weapons of male-dominated capitalist society in nineteenth-century France. The film, based on true events, describes the ambitious fight of a silk moth. She stood up for the rights of the female working class to end maltreatment and oppression once and for all. For the revolution in women's rights, she even put her family back and fought to the end for their beliefs.

The Great American Beauty Contest

The pursuit by America's loveliest girls for a coveted beauty crown is threatened by a scandal which implicates a judge, a former winner, and one of the five finalists.

Misbehaviour

A group of women involved in the Women's Liberation Movement hatched a plan to invade the stage and disrupt the live broadcast at the 1970 Miss World competition in London, resulting in overnight fame for the newly-formed organization. When the show resumed, the results caused an uproar and turned the Western ideal of beauty on its head.

Woman

The film is based on interviews with 2,000 women from 50 countries, and covers the status of women all over the world. The topics covered include forced marriages, sexual assault, female genital mutilation, acid attacks, motherhood, sexuality, menstruation, education and the professional success of women.

A Decade Under the Influence

A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.

Sidney

This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.

Love, Marilyn

Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

Love, Gilda

Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.

Lumière & Company

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.

Miss Representation

The film MISS REPRESENTATION exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.

In the Realms of the Unreal

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

To Be Takei

Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.

Feminists: What Were They Thinking?

In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

My Mom Jayne

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Cameraperson

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

Elstree 1976

A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.

The Summers of It - Chapter Two: It Ends

This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.

Meetin' WA

Revolutionary French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard conducts a twenty-five minute interview with influential and acclaimed American director Woody Allen on the cultural radiation, the ubiquity and significance of Television, and how Television compares with cinema as a medium and form of expression.