Welcome to the Women’s Voices Now (WVN) quick fact sheet. We are a Los Angeles based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2010 on the idea that women’s voices and their struggle for equality around the world should be amplified. Furthermore, film can bring awareness to girls’ and women’s rights issues while forming and mobilizing a community committed to action.

This was the vision of founder and seed-funder Leslie Sacks that sparked WVN’s first project: Women’s Voices from the Muslim World: A Short-Film Festival. Sadly, after a decade-long battle with cancer, Mr. Sacks died in 2013, but his untiring quest for justice lives on in WVN’s mission. 

WVN strives to challenge gender-based stereotypes, change mindsets, and shift culture in favor of women’s rights globally. Specifically, we work to address the mis- and underrepresentation of women and girls, in front of and behind the camera, through three core programs:

• The WVN Online Film Festival promotes emerging filmmakers creating films about girls’ and women’s rights. Since 2011, we have received 1500 film submissions from 105 countries and awarded $156,500 in cash prizes to filmmakers.

• Girls’ Voices Now is our youth development through filmmaking program. Taking place in Los Angeles and internationally, this program empowers the next generation of youth from under-resourced communities to find, develop, and use their voices for social change through filmmaking. Since 2018, Girls’ Voices Now has served 116 girls from under-resourced communities and overseen the production of their 31 short films, seen by over 4.5 million viewers, and which have received 3 Emmy nominations, and won a Daytime Emmy in 2021!

• Voices for Change is our free online film collection advocating for women’s rights. The collection currently hosts 360+ films in 73 languages from 98 countries, and has attracted 50 million viewers in 195 countries.