“Halima - Eine Anleitung zum Starksein” by Linda Verweyen | Germany | 24’ | doc | 2025 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
Halima underwent an operation to reconstruct her vulva after female genital mutilation. On her way back home, she speaks about her way of staying strong. A film about the consequences of FGM, everyday racism in Germany, and the reality of refugee women. Halima is a collective figure, representing the biography, the struggle, and the point of view of five Somali women who suffered FGM/C and worked on the film in all stages of production.
Linda Verweyen:
This film was created collectively by: Hawo Abdulle, Fahma Farah, Eido M. Abdillahi, Jawahir M. Siad, Fartuun Abdelkhdir, and Linda Verweyen. Linda Verweyen began filming Halima; it is her final graduation film. She completed a degree in ‘Expressive Arts in Social Transformation’, specializing in the individual and social relevance of film production. She is pursuing a master’s degree in film directing at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences, with a focus on participatory production, documentary‑fiction, and processes of social change through cinema.
“This Kind of Woman” by Raquel de Lima | Portugal | 20’ | doc | 2024 | Regional Premiere
Synopsis:
This kind of woman portrays the story of women from rural areas who chose to pursue professions typically performed by and associated with men. This 20-minute documentary short film follows the daily work and intimate routines of these women, capturing their accounts of situations where gender becomes a factor of differentiation and a source of challenges.
The documentary unfolds as we observe the routines of the three participants, evolving through informal interviews. A poetic atmosphere is created, highlighting not only the activities themselves but also the hidden beauty in everyday gestures and the most intimate moments of the characters.
Raquel de Lima:
Raquel de Lima is a multidisciplinary artist from the northern interior of Portugal, whose work spans theater, music, writing, and cinema. She holds a degree in Theater - Acting from ESMAE in Porto. Her professional career began as an actress and performer, and later evolved into singing jazz, experimental/improvised music, and polyphonic music. In 2019/2020, she pursued a postgraduate degree in dramaturgy and scriptwriting, also at ESMAE, Porto. She is the author of the audio play "Arigato", produced by Antena 2, and the short play "Espera", which premiered at Teatrão in Coimbra. In 2024, she enrolled in the master's program in documentary and experimental cinema at ESMAD and directed Uma Mulher do Género, her first documentary short film. In 2025 she completed her second documentary short film FORA, the result of her master’s final project, which she is currently promoting. Raquel uses various artistic mediums to explore themes of freedom, identity, and intimacy, while questioning social conventions.
“As I Witness” by Pamela Andrea Martinez Barrera | Venezuela, USA | 8’ | doc | 2024 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
The act of writing collapses the past and the present into the dissonant experience of witnessing the colonization of the body.
Pamela Andrea Martinez Barrera:
Pamela Martinez (she/her/ella) is a Venezuelan filmmaker and educator interested in systems of care, migration, and transitional justice. She has an MFA in the Documentary Media Program at Stanford and a BA in Sociology and Public Policy from NYU Abu Dhabi. Her first documentary, Estado Fallido / Failed State (2021), explores the political and social polarization within the indigenous Pemón Kamarakoto community in Canaima, which attempts to survive through tourism despite Venezuela's deep-rooted socio-economic crisis. Filmography includes Illegal Alien (2023), As I Witness (2024), Presente en los Grandes Eventos (2026). Her films have screened in India, the UAE, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, and the USA. She has worked as Programming Coordinator at the Science New Wave Film Festival by Imagine Science Films, taught Film Production at Stanford University and is currently an Artist Programs Consultant at Firelight Media. She is developing her first non-fiction feature film.
“Two Travelling Aunties” by Christine Seow | Singapore, United Kingdom | 21’ | doc | 2025 | Estreia Nacional
Synopsis:
Two spirited Singaporean women ditch conventional living for van life, embracing adventure, newfound freedom, and the joy of living on their own terms.
Christine Seow:
Christine Seow is a Singaporean filmmaker and alumni of the National Film and Television School. Her short film Two Travelling Aunties (2025) was nominated for the prestigious IDA Documentary Award and Beyond These Walls (2024) for a Grierson Award. She is drawn to stories that explore identity and belonging.
“Liens Familiers” by Cordula Rieger | Austria, France | 25’ | doc | 2025 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
Intimate conversations unfold between a grandmother and her granddaughter. In intimacy, two women – one of them the filmmaker herself – explore a blank space and hesitantly draw outlines out of the haze. A narrative of a train accident that occurred in 1985 pieced together from camera shots and (half-)sentences. The intimately documented moments between Cordula and her grandmother are interspersed with a staged train journey that takes place in the present. As the train abruptly brakes, reality reverberates in the fiction.
Liens familiers succeeds in utilizing absence to enable tender conversation and personal encounters; it achieves an awareness that two people need not share the same level of concern in order to achieve mutual understanding.
Cordula Rieger:
Cordula Rieger (*2000) is a French-Austrian filmmaker and actress. From 2020 to 2025, she studied directing at the Vienna Film Academy, first with Michael Haneke and later with Jessica Hausner, Tizza Covi, and Barbara Albert. Her passion for theater laid the foundation for her interdisciplinary approach to filmmaking. In recent years, she has written and directed numerous short fiction, experimental, and documentary films. Her short documentary The Gallery, which portrays an action by the feminist collective Femplak_Wien, was screened at many international festivals and was shortlisted for the Yugo BAFTA Awards. With her first feature-length and interactive documentary Nebenan (2025), she invites viewers to experience loneliness as a shared experience. As an actress, she performed in Die Zukunft reicht uns nicht, klagt kinder klagt at the Schauspielhaus Wien (2017–2024), directed by Thomas Köck and Elsa Sophie Jach. She also acted in Gli appunti di Anna Azzori, a film by Constanze Ruhm that was presented at the Berlinale Forum in 2020.
“Madres de Nacimiento” by Gloria Isabel Gómez Ceballos | France | 8’ | doc, exp | 2025 | European Premiere
Synopsis:
From oblivion and obscurity there are images and sounds that resurface to control the bodies of Latin American women, who since childhood have been considered to be mothers from birth. But there is an interference that emerges in these archives which comes from the past to evoke a message of struggle, memory and freedom.
Gloria Isabel Gómez Ceballos:
Latin American filmmaker. Since 2013, she has been writing and directing films that focus on women's rights, essay cinema and grief. In 2018, she co-founded El Cine Sana, an audiovisual production and training company that collaborates with the Cinémathèque de Medellín, ACDI/VOCA and the Ministry of Cultures of Colombia. After obtaining a Cum Laude recognition with her master's thesis, she began her career as an associated professor. Currently, she pursues a PhD in Arts Studies and Practices, where she studies participatory cinema as a means of emancipation in the face of discourses of domination over women's bodies.
“Niederurnen, GL” by Anna Joos | Switzerland | 18’ | doc, exp | 2025 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
In a forgotten valley of Switzerland, an evil wind haunts the daily lives of former Italian asbestos factory workers, who still breathe its invisible fibers.
Anna Joos:
Anna Joos is a Swiss-Swedish filmmaker and visual anthropologist who combines social theory with cinema. In 2019, she earned a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She then pursued a Master’s degree in Cinema, specializing in directing, at ECAL/HEAD, where she graduated in 2024 with her short film Niederurnen, GL.
“Burial” by Faranak Nateghi | Belgium | 8’ | doc | 2025 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
“Daffn” is the term for the burial of the dead in Islamic discourse. Drawing on family photos and archival material, this ritual is described through a personal lens. As the narrator reflects on the burial experience, she revisits her relationship with her aunt, who passed away early in her life.
Faranak Nateghi:
Faranak Nateghi is originally from Iran and works as a researcher, film editor, and filmmaker. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in the Erasmus Mundus FilmMemory program by FILMEU, with a focus on film heritage and archival practices. Her research examines the intersection of memory, political history, and the ethics of archival reuse, with a particular focus on Iranian cinema and underrepresented narratives. Her artistic practice blends found footage, AI-generated imagery, and personal archives, to critically reframe historical memory.
“Babilônia” by Duda Gambogi | Cuba, Brazil | 22’ | doc | 2024 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
Saturday night. A light shines on the deserted streets of Güira. Tonight, finally, there is something to do: Babylonia! The biggest drag show in Artemisa, a musical hanging garden, a divine partying civilization! Tonight is also Elizabeth's debut on the stage she always dreamed of. Behind the curtain, however, she will find that shining isn’t as easy as she imagined...
Duda Gambogi:
Duda Gambogi is a director, screenwriter, assistant director, editor and holds a master’s in Documentary Filmmaking from EICTV (Cuba). Her works have been screened at more than a hundred national and international festivals, such as Shorts México, Krakow Film Festival, FICVIÑA e Bogoshorts, having won several awards, and her first film, Endless Love, was chosen as one of the best short films of 2020 by Kinoscope magazine (USA). Duda also works in the fields of education, curatorship and film criticism, coordinating the ‘Documentary Development Group,’ a documentary lab at the Marieta cultural center, since 2023. She was a jury member at the 2nd A Outra Margem Festival, part of the youth jury at the 19th Tiradentes Film Festival and at the 10th Janela de Cinema film festival. Her critics were also published in several magazines and at the official coverage of festivals such as Janela de Cinema and Festcurtas BH.
“Where The Olives Are” by Kay Ayach | Portugal, Lebanon | 15’ | doc | 2025
Synopsis:
Four young Arab women, living in Portugal, spend a day in their friends’ land to disconnect from their everyday lives. A getaway which is rich in emotions, through trees, plants, smells, and stories bringing memories from their lands back home.
Kay Ayach:
Born in Lebanon in 1999, Kay Ayach is an emerging filmmaker. In 2021 she graduated in Beirut, in audiovisual and filmmaking. She also took part of the 12th edition of DocNomads master’s in documentary filmmaking across Lisbon, Budapest, and Brussels. Her work is deeply rooted in the stories of her homeland, and she finds solace in amplifying the voices of those who are often overlooked. Her creative drive stems from a profound connection to Lebanon and the Levant, coupled with an insatiable curiosity and sense of wonder as she navigates and documents the world around her.
“The Witches' Pact” by Fabiana Fragale | Germany | 70’ | doc | 2025 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
When a mobilization video from a mysterious coven of witches falls into the hands of the filmmaker, it sparks a quest driven by her longing for feminist solidarity. The witches’ traces lead her from souvenir shops to churches, from TikTok to the sea. She is drawn into a world with a past as dark as its practices are life-affirming, full of contradictions that defy all rules and regulations.
Fabiana Fragale:
Fabiana Fragale, born in Zurich in 1994, has lived in Cologne since 2015 and graduated from the KHM in 2024. Her films deal with the various forms of solidarity and are always looking for entanglements between the personal and the political. In 2023, her first long documentary film Lonely Oaks was released in cinemas and was nominated for the German Film Prize.
