Winners Selected for the 8th Annual Women’s Voices Now Film Festival Awards Ceremony: The Rights and Roles of Women: Redefining Our Shared Reality

 The 8th Annual Women’s Voices Now Film Festival is in the books and the winning films have been selected by their jury:

Leslie J. Sacks Best Documentary Feature – Indebted to All Women (Directors María Lobo & Roi Guitián, Spain/El Salvador)

Best Documentary Short -Since you arrived, my heart stopped belonging to me (Director Erin Semine Kökdil, US)

Lantos Foundation Best Human Rights Documentary – This Stained Dawn (Director Anam Abbas, Canada/Pakistan)

Best Creative Documentary – The Perfect Picture (Director Hala El Kouch, Lebanon)

Best First Time Filmmaker – Boucle en Onde (Director Elsa Cantelli, Italy/Burkina Faso)

Best Youth Documentary Short – La Coiffeuse/The Hairdresser (Director Lorraine Price, (Canada)

Honorable Mentions:

Leslie J Sacks Grand Prize – Best Feature Documentary Film – Belly of the Beast (Director Erika Cohn, USA)

Best First Time Filmmaker – Grounded (Director Annie Leclair, Canada)

Best Creative Documentary – The Art of Living In Danger (Director Mina Keshavarz, Islamic Republic of Iran)

“These brave documentary films remind us how the personal is political and vice versa. When we are willing to share the intimate details of the struggles and triumphs we traverse, we empower others to do the same – making the impossible suddenly seem possible. The awarded filmmakers deserve the highest recognition. They carry out their craft with the utmost courage and commitment to portraying the greatness of women seeking justice for themselves and those around them,” Heidi Basch-Harod, Executive Director of Women’s Voices Now.

The festival promotes emerging women filmmakers creating social-change films that advocate for girls’ and women’s rights around the world, awarding a total of $10,000 USD in cash prizes to winning filmmakers. Sponsors included Sony Pictures Entertainment, Filmocracy, the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, and OUT.LI.ER.

2022 Jury: Şirin Fulya Erensoy, Dr. Valentina Vitali, Poulomi Pal, Patricia Nogueira, Amarjit (Amar) Dass, Rita Capucho, Hillary P. Thilavong, Estrella Barcenas, Alona Shylova.

Award presenters included: Academy Award Winner, Rayka Zehtabchi (Period. End of Sentence.); Katrina Lantos-Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice; Georgii Speakman, Founder of Out.li.er; Tali Bielski, Women’s Voices Now Board Member; and Brooke Sebold, award-winning filmmaker (Framing Agnes, Sundance Film Festival).

Women’s Voices Now (WVN), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, uses film to drive positive social change that advances women’s and girls’ rights globally. We promote, produce, and share social-change films focusing on women’s and girls’ rights issues, providing active support to filmmakers who give voice to unheard women and girls, and activating civil society by moving audiences from empathy to action. We envision a global culture shift in which communities and institutions believe in the value of gender equality, and adapt their behaviors and actions to support systematic advancement of women’s and girls’ rights. WVN has held special consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2017.