“Mulheres, Terra, Revolução” by Rita Calvário, Cecília Honório | Portugal | 58’ | doc | 2025 | Regional Premiere
Synopsis:
Set against the backdrop of rural life and the revolution, this documentary gives a voice to the rural women who were the silent protagonists of change. Through the testimonies of women farmers, cooperative members, and journalists, a story of resistance is revealed. The struggle for emancipation and the construction of the people’s power, at a time when speaking out—and taking action—was, for many women, a truly revolutionary act.
Rita Calvário & Rita Onório:
Rita Calvário (1978) is a researcher at DINAMIA’CET-Iscte. She is co-editor of the books “Insurgent Ecologies” (2024) and “The Political Ecology of Austerity” (2021). She is also co-author of “Women, Land, Revolution: the 25th April from rural women perspectives” (Tinta-da-China, 2026).
Cecília Honório (1962) is a professor of History and a researcher at CHAM — NOVA FCSH. She is the author of the books New and Old Extreme Rights (2021), “The Spectrum of Populisms” (2018), and “Women Against the Dictatorship” (2015). She is also co-author of the documentary Novíssimas Cartas Portuguesas (2022) and of “Women, Land, Revolution: the 25th April from rural women perspectives” (Tinta-da-China, 2026).
“Linda” by Virginia Garra | Italy | 13’ | doc | 2025 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
Linda is a young woman working as an electrician in Milan, Italy. Her days unfold as she moves from one construction site to another. She visits elegant homes, warehouses, building lobbies, basements, and the porter’s lodges of historic buildings. She shares the reactions of the people she meets and how it still feels unusual for them to call a technician and see a woman show up.
Virginia Garra:
Virginia Garra (Milan, 1993) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Milan, Italy. Through her poetic and delicate gaze, she explores everyday situations, unpacking them and revealing uncharted perspectives. Her short film My Sunset Room (2021) won the Perspectives Jury Prize at the Filmmaker Festival in Milan. Her works have been shown in several exhibitions and screenings, including at the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva (CH), the Fondation Pernod Ricard in Paris (FR) and the Lucania Film Festival in Pisticci (IT).
“Shh...” by Jolie Ruelle | USA | 1’ | ani, exp | 2024 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
This animated short aims to highlight the pressure to hide birth and motherhood from career spaces. By silencing these deeply transformative events, inexplicable gaps are often left in the professional narratives of women who become mothers. What if we were to fill these gaps with bold transparency, presenting wholistic views of our lives?
Jolie Ruelle:
Jolie Ruelle is an artist and educator working in animation and motion design. She received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art (2004) and MFA from the University of California Santa Cruz (2012). Her work has been screened nationally and internationally. Her current areas of interest include merging analogue animation practices with digital compositing techniques and exploring animation’s potential for social and environmental impact.
“Craftswomen” by Gabriella Gerolemou | Greece | 73’ | doc | 2025 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
Maria, Stavroula and Magda do woodworking jobs in a shared woodshop in Athens city centre. Coming from different backgrounds but with common points of view and a friendship binding them, they decide to open their own carpentry shop. This observational documentary follows them during this transition. Through their in-between relationships, their daily lives in both woodshops and their interactions with passersby, the documentary challenges gender stereotypes and questions the dominant narratives about competitiveness in workplaces.
Gabriella Gerolemou:
Gabriella Gerolemou was born in Lemesos and was raised between Cyprus and Greece. She lives and works in Athens as a film director, cinematographer and editor for critically-acclaimed short and feature films. She is a graduate of the University of West Attica’s Department of Photography and Audiovisual Arts and holds a Master’s degree in Digital Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts. In 2022, she was selected to participate in the Editing Studio of the Talents' program, of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
This is her first feature documentary and it was an official selection in Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in 2025.
“Mrs. Faiza & Dr. Love” by Anissa Daoud | France | 25’ | fic | 2025 | Regional Premiere
Synopsis:
Faiza é tudo o que se poderia esperar de uma mãe magrebina que vive na cidade: trabalhadora, dedicada aos filhos que cria sozinha, atenciosa e prestável. Mas no modesto apartamento da família, Faiza Alaoui tem um “quarto só seu”, onde outra faceta da sua personalidade se revela, uma faceta que não tem medo de transgredir e que a reconecta com as ambições da sua juventude.
Anissa Daoud:
Com um pai tunisino e uma mãe franco-italiana, Anissa Daoud é atriz, escritora, produtora e realizadora. No teatro, foca-se em projectos transdisciplinares com um cunho político. No cinema, já participou em vários filmes premiados, incluindo Beauty and the Dogs. Também é co-fundadora da A.P.A. (Artistes Producteurs Associés), que produz teatro e cinema, exibido internacionalmente, como em Cannes e Veneza. Como realizadora, cria curtas-metragens centradas no feminismo, como Best Day Ever and The Bath. Em simultâneo com o trabalho de atriz e de produção, está neste momento a desenvolver vários projetos fílmicos, incluindo a sua primeira longa, Les Immortelles.
“THE GUIDING LIGHT” by Cristina Rodríguez Paz | Spain | 20’ | doc | 2025 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
Through this film, the last female lighthouse keepers pay an intimate and reflexive tribute to the profession that’s defined their lives. It’s not just a profession that’s disappearing… This is a collective requiem for a way of life that’s becoming extinct.
Cristina Rodríguez Paz:
Cristina Rodríguez Paz 1975, Bachelor's Degree in Cinematography by the ECAM, year 2000. Her career spans thirty years in the camera department, working on over 40 feature films both national and internationally and of all budget sizes. This is her debut as director after years of experience in the camera department in features, tv dramas, commercials, and documentaries, traveling across the globe.
“Nothing to Be Done” by Leandra Leal | Brazil | 87’ | doc | 2025 | International Premiere
Synopsis:
"Nothing to Be Done" follows the evolving relationship between Brazilian actresses and mother-daughter duo Angela and Leandra Leal as they find themselves confined together during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the family’s theater in crisis and an uncertain future ahead, they decide to read and study the play Waiting for Godot. The film captures a journey of love and art, in which the stage becomes a space for transformation. Shot in an intimate style, the documentary draws on personal histories and family archives to explore the delicate interplay between time, memory, and motherhood.
Leandra Leal:
Leandra Leal is an actress, producer and director. She’s acted in 28 movies, produced 8 features and is the director of Divinas Divas, that was officially selected at Hot Docs, won the audience award at SXSW and the Brazilian Cinema Grand Prize. Leandra has received awards like Fênix, Biarritz, APCA, Gramado, among others, and was honored at the Tiradentes Festival in 2017. She’s creator and director of the fiction series "A Vida Pela Frente", a Globoplay original from 2023.
“Like a spiral” de Lamia Chraibi | Canadá, Marrocos | 28’ | doc, exp | 2024 | Estreia Nacional
Synopsis:
Like a Spiral é um diálogo entre Beirute e cinco mulheres, trabalhadoras domésticas migrantes, sob o sistema Kafala. Expressando o seu sentimento de pertença a uma sociedade em colapso, as vozes das mulheres erguem‑se através das imagens granuladas do filme, para denunciar a sua liberdade roubada, com uma sede inalienável de existir. As suas memórias dançam ao ritmo da opressão. Presas na espiral da vida, erguem‑se para não afundar no esquecimento.
Lamia Chraibi:
Lamia Chraibi é uma cineasta franco‑marroquina radicada em Montreal. Interessa‑se particularmente por temas de justiça social, identidade, família e território. Também aborda assuntos relacionados com a linguagem corporal e a arte social. O ser humano está no centro da sua abordagem. Os seus estudos em ciências sociais (Sorbonne, Paris) e em documentário (INIS, Montreal) moldaram a sua visão sensível e comprometida do mundo. A sua arte é alimentada pelas questões da sua identidade, pela sua trajetória migratória e pelas suas viagens. O cinema de Lamia baseia-se no tempo e na confiança estabelecida com os protagonistas. Com uma abordagem poética, a sua câmara dá voz às pessoas esquecidas, de diversos contextos.
“23 and Mary: A Banning Abecedarium” by Maya Han | USA | 19’ | doc, exp | 2025 | National Premiere
Synopsis:
23 and Mary: A Banning Abecedarium, is a poetic and illuminating glimpse into the life and art of Mary Elizabeth Banning (1822-1903), a pioneering American mycologist. Self-taught, and one of the first and only women in the then-burgeoning field of mycology. Her magnum opus of 175 stunning watercolor illustrations with scientifically accurate descriptions languished unpublished, hidden away and forgotten for nearly a century. This film brings her untold story to the public for the first time and is a celebration of a remarkable unsung heroine of science.
Maya Han:
Maya Han is a Brooklyn-based artist and filmmaker whose recent projects focus on the natural sciences, environmental justice, and ecofeminism. Her works integrate interdisciplinary techniques to expand the language of moving images, give visibility to hidden histories, and create transformative new representations of the possible. She has received awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Puffin Environmental Arts Grant, and her work has been presented internationally at film festivals and art spaces.
“Code 99881” by Heshoo Fatih Mohammed | Iraq | 12’ | doc | 2025 | World Premiere
Synopsis:
Ruxsar, a young woman, works in one of the oncology hospitals as a chemotherapy nurse. Every day, she prepares a large number of chemotherapy medications for patients, saving many lives from danger. However, due to the hazardous nature of these drugs and her daily exposure to them, her own life eventually faces serious risk.
Heshoo Fatih Mohammed:
Heshoo Fatih Mohammed, born in 1998 in Sulaymaniyah, graduated in 2021 from the College of Fine Arts, Department of Filmmaking. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in cinema. For the past two years, she has been writing articles and papers on cinema and is the author of a theoretical book on film studies.
“Cá e Lá - 40 Anos on Stage” by Ana Isabel Freitas | Portugal | 29’ | doc | 2025 | World Premiere
Synopsis:
For 40 years, the bilingual theatre company Cá e Lá has given voice to the stories of Portuguese immigration in France. This documentary follows the journey of its two founders, who revisit their own history — rediscovering photographs from the company’s early years, reflecting on the artistic evolution of their work, and reinterpreting today, on stage, the very same theatrical tableaux from the past. Between memory and transmission, displacement and belonging, the film reflects on theatre as a space of resistance, continuity, and transformation.
Ana Isabel Freitas:
Ana Isabel Freitas is a Portuguese filmmaker and visual artist based in Paris. Trained in Fine Arts (University of Porto) and holding a Master’s degree in Cinematic Project Development (ESTC, Lisbon). Her documentaries—including Lá em Baixo (2020) and Uma Vindima (2015)—draw on autobiographical material and the materiality of memory. A PhD candidate in Portuguese Studies at Université Paris Nanterre, she develops research-creation projects on Portuguese migration folklore in France and has worked as a cultural mediator, language teacher, and stage actress with the bilingual theatre company Cá e Lá.
“Wolobougou” by Camille Varenne | France | 66’ | doc
Synopsis:
Wolobougou means "the place of compassionate birth" in Bambara. It is the name of the small bush maternity clinic founded by midwife Honorine Soma in Burkina Faso. Honorine aims to revolutionize the place of women in Burkinabè society. She created her own clinic to provide healthcare access to women in rural areas. In a region with little to no medical resources, every action taken is essential. She passes on her feminist struggle to the young midwives she trains. It is a quest for dignity and justice, rooted in the intimate experience of the body.
Camille Varenne:
Camille Varenne (1992) is a filmmaker and film programmer. Her documentaries sit at the intersection of cinema, artistic research, and decolonial and feminist perspectives.
After Wéfo (2015), about Burkinabè traditional horse riders, she did Blakata (2019) - a documentary western (Youth Jury Prize at Corsica.Doc Festival). She also co-directed Pedra e Poeira (2018) with André Parente. Trained at the Institut Imagine in Ouagadougou and with a postgraduate research degree in art from ESACM, she’s also a member of the selection committee of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
